[Word Bearers 03] - Dark Creed

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  A massive dark green crystal, easily three metres in height, rose up from within the prism until it was hanging unsupported within this hollow cage-like formation. This crystal was perfect in its angular symmetry, and flickered with inner light. Sparking green electrical impulses darted between it and the rib-like buttresses enclosing it, tentatively at first, then building in frequency and power. The light within the crystal intensified, until it was glowing brightly, and the shower of sparks coalescing around it crackled like sheet lightning.

  Hieroglyphs and pictograms pulsed into life upon the sheer sides of the prism, and weapon-turrets emerged from crenellations that appeared upon the four corners of the pyramid. They began to rotate mechanically, and green lightning flickered along the length of their barrels. Targeting reticules within Marduk’s helmet flashed, locking onto these weapons.

  “Take it down!” he roared.

  Coadjutor Aquilius emerged with his brethren from the service elevator. They stood upon the high crenulated battlements of the designated landing pad the incoming Thunderhawk was aiming for, high atop of the Temple of the Gloriatus. A golden dome rose behind them, topped with a gleaming statue of the Emperor. How it still remained intact among the destruction was a minor miracle in itself, Aquilius thought.

  Standing nearly thirty metres tall, it was to view this that so many of the devout made the pilgrimage to Boros Prime. It was said that to look upon the statue was to look upon the divine. So skilled had its artisans been that the sublime expression upon the statue’s face brought tears to the eyes of all who looked upon it. Aquilius felt some comfort to be standing beneath its gaze.

  One of the injured Sternguard veterans was lowered to the ground. The battle-brother propped himself up with his back to the crenulations and Aquilius stood, looking out over the battlements across the square below. What he saw made his breath catch in his throat.

  The Word Bearers below firing upon a slowly revolving black pyramid hovering above the ground. Where the xenos thing had come from, Aquilius knew not.

  Missiles detonated ineffectively upon the structure’s sheer, black surfaces, and he watched as autocannon rounds stitched across its sides. The heavy-calibre shells ricocheted harmlessly off the dark stone, causing not so much as a crack in its surface. Lascannon beams struck its angled sides, yet the energy was merely absorbed into the alien structure, making its hieroglyphs momentarily glow brighter.

  A widening circle was cleared before the alien prism as the Word Bearers spread out into cover as it descended towards the ground. It came to rest a metre above the marble square, and began to return fire.

  An arc of lightning erupted from one of its rotating armatures, striking a cluster of Word Bearers who had taken cover behind a low balustrade. There was a blinding explosion of light and half a dozen of the traitor Space Marines were sent flying, their bodies blackened and smoking. They hit the ground hard, their bodies twitching as remnants of green electricity flickered across their armour. The marble balustrade was completely obliterated, and a circle of smoking ash marked where the potent arc had hit.

  The other rotating armatures fired, causing destruction to all and sundry, striking anything within a thirty metres radius. A Predator battle tank, a crucified White Consul nailed to the front of its armoured chassis, was reversing away from the deadly xenos prism, its turret-mounted twin lascannons firing desperately and ineffectually. A lightning arc whipped out and struck the Predator, sending it flipping backwards, end over end, a blackened shell flickering with sparks.

  A doorway of shimmering light appeared within one side of the black prism, and Aquilius watched in horrified fascination as a pair of deathly, robotic skeletons marched from within, stepping down onto the marble surface of Victory Square, their movements in perfect synchronicity.

  Their gaunt, skeletal bodies appeared to be formed of dark metal, and glowing green light oozed from their empty eye sockets. They held long-barrelled weapons across their hollow chests, and the light of gunfire and electricity reflected sharply off their silver craniums and bones.

  In pairs, skeletal soldiers marched from within the prism in a steady stream, and they began to form a phalanx. Several of them were felled by concentrated Word Bearers fire, but many of the undead warriors simply rose back to their feet seconds later, the damage they had sustained repairing itself seamlessly. Severed limbs reattached themselves and craters caused by detonating bolt rounds in heads and chests disappeared as if they had never been.

  Still more skeletal warriors stepped through the doorway of flickering light, far more than could have possibly fitted within the prism, moving steadily, their pace unhurried and relentless. Aquilius realised the prism must be acting as a form of gateway, linking to the immense ship hanging in low orbit overhead. His mind boggled as he imagined the number of humanoid sentinels that a vessel of such size might contain.

  More of the black-sided prisms blinked into existence above Victory Square, spinning lazily as they descended slowly towards the ground. Each began undergoing the same transformation that the first had, glowing crystals rising from their centres and riblike buttresses sliding up their sheer sides as they powered up.

  A krak missile struck the crystal emerging from the inside of one of the xenos prisms before it had come fully to life, and it exploded into a million shards. Like a marionette with its strings cut, the prism dropped like a stone, its glowing hieroglyphs fading to darkness. By the time it hit the square below, it was nothing more than an inert, lifeless hunk of stone.

  Smaller spheres of light glimmered in the air, like a host of sparking fireflies, before contracting sharply, and other shapes blinked into reality.

  Spider-like robotic constructs the size of Dreadnoughts appeared, looming above the Word Bearers, their arachnid, metal legs clicking beneath them. Clusters of glowing green eyes blinked and locked onto the milling traitors below. Binaric clicks issued from their silver mandibles, and they descended upon the enemy’s ranks, huge metal pincers snapping Traitor Astartes in two.

  Other xenos beings materialised, resembling some kind of bizarre, mechanised centaur. From the waist up they were the manifestation of horrific skeletal humanoids, while their lower bodies were some form of anti-grav skiff. Their right arms had been replaced with multi-barrelled cannons, pulsing with intense, green electrical currents. Moving with unhurried grace, their movements conducted in perfect unison, these new arrivals hovered several metres above the heads of the Word Bearers. They began to unleash the power of their alien weaponry, and Aquilius felt a mixture of horror and awe as he witnessed the beams of light passing right through the bodies of the Traitors, leaving gaping holes in ceramite armour and flesh alike.

  Victory Square was now a chaotic warzone, with traitors battling furiously with the xenos constructs.

  A flight of traitor Stormbirds and Thunderhawks, their gore-splashed hulls hung with chains and daemonic symbology, came screaming in low over the rooftops, engines spewing orange flame. One of them was instantly struck by a whiplash of discharging electricity, sending it into a spiralling death spin. It came down hard, one wing ripping off as it struck a soaring buttress of the Temple of the Gloriatus. The fifty-tonne piece of masonry came crashing down in a shower of marble, and the Stormbird ploughed into the square, killing dozens of traitors and skeletal xenos warriors as it exploded into a towering fireball.

  The other shuttles dropped down through the mayhem, weapon systems firing, and the Word Bearers began streaming towards them as their assault ramps slammed down onto the square.

  “Thunderhawk inbound,” said one of the blue-helmed Sternguard veterans, his white crest shivering from the amount of electricity pulsing through the air. “Three minutes.”

  Aquilius wondered briefly what the point was anymore. Ostorius had failed. There was no hope of salvation.

  He felt a hand on his arm, and looked down into the strong face of the Imperial officer, Verenus of the Boros 232nd.

  “As long as the White Ange
l is with us, there is always hope,” said the solder, with a smile.

  Aquilius shook his head, smiling despite himself.

  Then Verenus’ head disintegrated, ripped apart molecule by molecule as an arc of green energy struck it.

  Aquilius swore and fell back, scrabbling for his bolter.

  A trio of skeletal constructs hove into view, flying along at the same level as the temple’s battlements. Aquilius was dragged backwards as the xenos constructs fired again, and a head-sized chunk of the battlements disintegrated, right where he had been standing a fraction of a second earlier. One of the Sternguard veterans fell, a gaping hole torn through his body.

  The veteran that had pulled Aquilius back fired his plasma pistol, taking one of the mechanoids in the head. Its leering skull face was replaced with a molten crater as the white hot burst of plasma struck it, and it dropped out of sight, falling to the ground thirty metres below the wall.

  Bolts pattered off the chests of the other two, and the Imperials fled before them, retreating inside the temple precinct. Aquilius glanced back over his shoulder to see the fallen construct rising from the ground, its skull reforming before his eyes.

  “Emperor above,” breathed Aquilius.

  “How long till that Thunderhawk arrives?” barked Liventius.

  “One minute, Epistolary!” came the reply. It seemed like a lifetime.

  “Hurry, revered one!” bellowed Marduk, urging the Warmonger up the ramp of the Stormbird. The Dreadnought clomped its way into the shuttle’s assault bay, even as more warrior brothers bolted up the ramp to take their seats.

  “Full!” shouted Sabtec, and Marduk nodded.

  “Go!” roared Marduk.

  He was standing in the doorway of the Stormbird, firing his bolt pistol. He slammed his fist onto a panel on inner wall, and the embarkation ramp began to close. Retro thrusters roared, and the heavy assault craft lifted off.

  He could see First Acolyte Ashkanez and his Icon Bearer, Burias, some distance away, boarding another Stormbird. He raised his hand as Burias looked in his direction, but the Icon Bearer turned away.

  All the Word Bearers within the square were streaming towards the assault shuttles that were touching down. Rhinos accelerated up embarkation ramps, tracks skidding, and Land Raiders and Predators were grasped by coupling claws beneath Thunderhawks, ready for transportation.

  Before Marduk’s Stormbird could pull away, a giant mechanical pincer tore into the closing assault ramp, punching through the reinforced plasteel. In one violent motion the entire hatch was ripped off its pneumatic hinges, and Marduk came face to face with one of the immense, robotic spider-constructs, hovering outside. Its cluster of green eyes glimmered with malign intelligence. Its mandibles quivered and it emitted an indecipherable torrent of electronic clicks and whistles. It lifted its other slender fore-claw, which ended in a long barrel flickering with energy.

  Marduk swore and threw himself sidewards as the mechanised construct fired into the cramped interior of the Stormbird. Three Word Bearers were consumed in the blast, and they roared in pain. The searing beam took apart their power armour molecule by molecule, before setting to work on the flesh, flaying skin and muscle exposing the skeleton beneath. In turn, even the warrior brothers’ bones were atomised. It was a deeply unsettling sight, even to one such as Marduk.

  Kol Badar planted his feet wide and unleashed a burst of fire into the spider’s head, and a dozen of its glowing eyes darkened. It twitched, gliding backwards in the face of the fusillade, and then the Stormbird’s engines fired at full power, lifting the assault craft away from the corpse-strewn square, which was still bathed in cold diffuse light projected from above.

  As the Stormbird rose, it passed through a thick cloud of dust that manifested out of nowhere amid a million tiny flashes of light.

  No, not dust, Marduk realised. The particles were too large, and shone with reflective light. It was a cloud of tiny metallic insects, he realised, a million buzzing, robotic scarabs.

  They swarmed in a tight-knit cloud that obscured his vision as the Stormbird rose through it.

  Hundreds of them swarmed through the gaping rent left in the side of the Stormbird where the assault ramp had been torn loose, tiny metal wings buzzing and thoraxes vibrating. Marduk staggered back away from the opening, keeping his centre of gravity low and swatting at the massed insects.

  The scarabs, most no larger than the palm of a hand, some so small as to be almost invisible, skittered across every surface of the Stormbird’s interior, their tiny silver legs and mandibles clicking. They flowed like a tide up the legs of the Word Bearers locked into the harnesses nearest the doorway and burrowed into their thick ceramite plates. One warrior screamed as he was covered from head to toe, the mechanical insects crawling up over the lip of his breastplate and down the inside of his armour, tunnelling into his flesh. The Word Bearer threw his restraint harness clear and rose to his feet, slapping and scratching at his armour. Marduk saw a bulge of scarabs beneath the skin of the warrior’s face. He saw one of the tiny creatures emerge, its silver carapace slick with blood, burrowing out through his left eye socket.

  The warrior turned around on the spot, grimacing, slapping and tearing at his own skin. As the Stormbird’s angle of ascent steepened, he lost his footing and was sucked out of the gaping hole in the shuttle’s hull.

  “Flamers!” roared Kol Badar, and controlled bursts of promethium bathed the interior of the Stormbird. Scarabs squealed as they were consumed, and within a minute, the majority of the tiny constructs were gone.

  The Stormbird continued to rise, leaving the cluttering cloud behind.

  Gripping onto guide rails tightly, Marduk moved to the gaping hole where the assault ramp had been torn away and leant out into the deafening wind, studying the lay of the land below. The full spectacle of the xenos’ arrival could be seen as the Stormbird rose above the city.

  Thousands of skeletal warriors were marching through the streets below, moving in perfect phalanxes. Tens of thousands of Guardsmen flooded the streets, fleeing before them. As the Stormbird pulled higher, Marduk could see hundreds of the black-sided prisms dotted all over the city, and even more xenos constructs were marching from them onto the streets with every passing minute.

  As the Stormbird gained altitude, he saw a Reaver Titan of Legio Vulturus surrounded by six of the monoliths. The fire-blackened forms of two Warhounds lay twitching in smoking heaps nearby, buildings crushed beneath their carcasses. Arcs of energy struck the Reaver repeatedly. It brought one of the pyramids down with a concentrated burst of missiles launched from the pod upon its shoulders. Another was swatted aside by the Reaver’s immense chainfist, the blow tearing the alien prism in half and sending it smashing into a fortified tower, bringing it crashing down. But even the mighty Reaver could not last against the monoliths, and one by one its flickering void shields were brought down by the relentless barrage it was sustaining from all sides. Like a cornered beast, it turned one way and another, seeking escape. It howled its fury as it came under direct assault again, arcs of green electricity ripping one arm away and tearing into its black carapace. It was finally brought down, and its ululating death cry rang out across the city.

  Marduk whistled through his teeth as he witnessed the death of the ancient engine.

  Reports flooded in. All across Boros Prime, the xenos were making their presence known. Ekodas’ order came through, ordering all Hosts to evacuate immediately.

  The planet belonged to the xenos.

  In the centre of the square below, unseen by mortal eyes, the thick cloud of metal scarabs was swarming into an ever denser, impenetrable cloud, hovering just metres above the scorched stonework. Robotic warriors formed up in precise ranks around this violently writhing shoal of mechanised insects. These warriors were larger and more heavily armoured than the other deathly automatons, and they clutched glaivelike weapons in their skeletal hands, their blades formed of flickering green light.

  The sca
rabs started to latch onto each other, barbed legs and mandibles locking together, and a vaguely humanoid shape began to take form. Insectoid bodies seemed to melt as if under an intense heat, their bodies turning to molten metal as they blurred together, sacrificing their individual forms to create something altogether more terrible.

  Ghostly green light began to burn within hollow eyes sockets. Coldly, the ancient being known as the Undying One turned to watch the Word Bearers retreat before it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Look at the size of it,” exclaimed Sabtec. The champion of the exalted 13th Coterie stood next to Marduk, peering out of the port-side window of the Stormbird’s cockpit.

  The surface of Boros Prime was receding away below them as the heavy assault shuttle hurtled up through the tortured planet’s atmosphere, angling towards the Infidus Diabolus, which was on an intercept path with them in orbit above. They were three thousand kilometres from the ground and rising steadily, and from their vantage point they were afforded a view across the immense, crescent-shaped vessel of the enemy xenos-constructs.

  It was truly massive, larger than any ship that Marduk had ever laid eyes on. It rivalled the bulk of a Darkstar fortress. Having witnessed the effectiveness of the enemy’s weapons upon the ground, the thought of what this titanic vessel might be capable of was horrifying. Marduk prayed to the Weaver of the Fates that they were out of range of whatever weapon systems it might have at its disposal.

  Blinding pillars of light beamed from the ship’s underside down onto the city below, deploying its inhuman armies across the city in a spread of more than fifteen kilometres. Marduk shook his head in wonder. Less than ten minutes after first appearing in the upper atmosphere, the enemy had deployed tens of thousands of its troops and established complete dominion within the city below. Not even Astartes were able to deploy in such force at a speed to match that feat.