[Word Bearers 03] - Dark Creed

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  Tens of thousands were slaughtered by the merciless necron warriors marching steadily through the streets, gunning down every living creature that they encountered, whether they resisted or not. It was a harvest of sickening proportions. The streets were awash with blood, and mutilated corpses and severed limbs were scattered about like discarded toys.

  Those with the strongest warp presence suffered the worst. Blood clots blossomed within the minds of Imperial astropaths and the sanctioned psykers attached to the command sections of the Boros Guard, and they collapsed to the ground, their bodies wracked with violent convulsions, screaming incoherently as their souls were torn from their fragile bodies.

  “What in the Emperor’s name has happened?” breathed Aquilius, clutching at a marble railing for balance.

  Librarian Epistolary Liventius’ eyes were clenched tightly shut, and his teeth were bared in a grimace of pain. A droplet of blood ran from his left nostril.

  “My lord?” said Aquilius in concern. The Librarian was leaning heavily upon his force staff, and after a moment he opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and sunken. He placed a hand to his temple, a shadow passing across his face.

  “My powers,” breathed the Librarian. “They are gone.”

  In orbit above Boros Prime, the Infidus Diabolus shuddered as if it had been struck with cyclonic torpedoes. It listed heavily to one side, its hull groaning in protest as the daemons that had infused its essence since before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy were banished. The strike cruiser’s central processing cogitator units sputtered and died. Reliant on the daemon essences bound into its mainframe, the ship’s thinking computers and hard-wired servitors were unable to function as the malicious spirits were driven out. The ship threatened to come apart at the seams, so intrinsic was the warp to its very existence.

  Marduk dropped to his knees, a terrible empty pain clutching at his hearts as he felt his connection to the warp stripped away.

  Aboard the Crucius Maledictus, the corrupted magos, Darioq-Grendh’al, seemed to shrink, his fleshy, daemonic appendages withering and beginning to rot at an accelerated rate as the daemon within him was sent screaming back to its plane of origin. Cancers and tumours long kept at bay by the infernal spirit that had become a part of the tech-magos began to bloom, and his life-support system began to bleat plaintively.

  Skinless kathartes daemons took flight, but they had barely stretched out their flayed-flesh wings before they blinked out of existence, dragged back to their own turbulent realm of Chaos.

  Arachnid-legged daemon-engines fell lifelessly to the floor, rendered utterly inert, their hulls nothing more than empty shells, the daemons bound into their iron skins dragged into darkness by the power of the Nexus Arrangement.

  There was not a warrior brother within any of the Word Bearers ships that did not suffer as the link between the material universe and the empyrean was severed. Isolated from their gods, they were utterly and terribly alone.

  Marduk regained his balance, steadying himself. Pain throbbed through his mind, but he forcibly pushed it away. Twice before he had experienced this emptiness, this complete isolation from the blessed warp.

  “The aether is being blocked,” growled First Acolyte Ashkanez, massaging his temples. “We are cut off, adrift. It is… It is an abomination! Such a thing should not be.”

  Burias was pale and drawn, and he stared at his shaking hands, the expression upon his face one of rising panic. Marduk could only imagine the horror of separation that the possessed warrior was experiencing.

  Kol Badar was down on one knee, steadying himself with a hand to the floor. Never one to have been strongly attuned to the warp at the best of times, the Coryphaus was nonetheless shaken, his face waxy and an even more deathly shade than usual.

  Marduk unsheathed his chainsword and studied it closely, turning it over in his hands. There was no familiar daemonic presence within the weapon; the daemon Borhg’ash was gone.

  A blister light throbbed weakly on one of the few still functioning command consoles of the bridge. Kol Badar pushed himself to his feet and moved to it.

  “A message from the Crucius Maledictus,” he said.

  “And what does the Grand Apostle have to say?”

  “Gods,” swore the Coryphaus. “He has lost the device.”

  “What?” said Marduk. “How?”

  “It does not say. He has identified its location, however. He is ordering us to retrieve it.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Where is it?”

  “On the surface.”

  Marduk scoffed, shaking his head. “He wants us to go back and get it, cut off from the warp completely, as we are? It would be suicide.”

  “It is suicide if we do not,” said Kol Badar.

  “Explain yourself.”

  “The Crucius Maledictus has us in her sight. The message says that it will fire unless an attempt is made with the next fifteen minutes.”

  “He’s bluffing. His systems will be offline, just as ours are.”

  “Perhaps,” said Kol Badar.

  “Gods!” swore Marduk. “Fine. How do we do this?”

  “The daemon-infused guidance systems of the Dreadclaws will be non-operational,” said Kol Badar, shaking his head. “We cannot use them.”

  “Damnation!” growled Marduk, seething. “Assault shuttles, then.”

  “Five Thunderhawks and three Stormbirds were destroyed attempting to get us off-world,” said Kol Badar. “None of those that made it out are undamaged. It will be weeks before they are ready to be redeployed. It would be futile to launch an assault using them. We will be annihilated.”

  “Then what do you propose, Coryphaus? Tell me! We must reclaim the device! Failure is not an option!”

  The deck shook as the towering shape of the Warmonger stepped forwards from the shadows.

  “There is another way…” the ancient Dreadnought boomed.

  Within the darkened expanse of the Temple of the Gloriatus, Aquilius and the handful of Sternguard veterans of 1st Company were fighting back to back, desperately seeking to keep the necrons at bay. They had abandoned their location atop the temple half an hour earlier, when they had seen the Thunderhawk that had been closing on their position blasted out of the sky. It had crashed into the city below in a blossoming explosion of fire, killing all the battle-brothers on board.

  They fired their bolters in short, concentrated bursts to conserve ammunition, but all were running perilously low. The inhuman automatons came on relentlessly, their movements unhurried and in perfect unison. In the darkness of the temple, their soulless eyes glowed brightly, and the flickering energy of their infernal weapons was reflected upon their silver skeletons.

  Aquilius held the scrimshawed pole of the unfurled Chapter banner tightly in his left hand. Only in death would he relinquish his hold on it, and even then, the enemy would be forced to pry his fingers open before he dropped the holy standard. The young Coadjutor felt both fierce pride and an awed humility even to be in the presence of the holy relic, let alone to be holding it aloft in battle.

  Were the situation not so dire, he would have been overawed to be surrounded by such vaunted heroes as now fought at his side. He could not imagine a better death than to fall fighting alongside these 1st Company Veterans, and death seemed a certainty.

  The huge, gold-plated doors of the Temple of the Gloriatus had been obliterated, exploding inwards as arcs of green energy struck them, and the ranks of the deathly xenos had marched inside. Their mere presence was an affront, and the White Consuls had met them with bolter and chainsword, yet they were but a handful, and arrayed against them was a numberless tide of evil.

  The White Consuls had been pushed further and further back. They had chosen to make their stand upon the stairs of the central dais, and it was here that Aquilius had planted the Chapter banner, swearing that while he drew breath, it would not fall.

  The temple was immense, the largest cathedral in the Boros system, and tens of thousan
ds of men and women made the pilgrimage to its hallowed halls every month, many using their entire life savings to make the passage. The arched ceilings soared impossibly high overhead, before disappearing into darkness. Each of the four expansive wings of the cathedral had their own pulpits, chapels and choirs, but it was within the central nave that Aquilius and the battle-brothers of 1st Company now stood. The sound of the enemy’s metal-boned feet upon the marble flooring echoed loudly through the cavernous temple.

  Seven levels of tiered seating looked down upon them, and hundreds of low benches were arrayed upon the floor of the temple below the steps. All told, more than two hundred thousand worshippers could be accommodated comfortably within the temple walls. On holy days, a hundred times that number packed into Victory Square to hear the choirs of the Gloriatus and witness the sermons on flickering holo-screens. Now the floor was seething with deathly abominations, marching resolutely upon the White Consuls, death spitting from their ancient weapons.

  “Out!” shouted one of the White Consuls as the chambers of his weapon emptied. The veteran battle-brother swung his ornate bolter over his shoulder and drew his power sword, itself a holy relic of the Chapter. Coruscating arcs of green energy took down two of the blue-helmeted veterans, stripping them to the bone.

  Scores of the skeletal automatons were felled by the disciplined fire of the Sternguard, but more were advancing into the cathedral, their numbers beyond counting. The twisted wreckage of destroyed necrons was piled at the base of the broad stairs, which soon resembled an island amidst a sea of skeletal, metallic corpses.

  The necrons were incredibly difficult to put down, each one soaking up enough fire to drop an Astartes before their implacable advance was halted. Even then, many simply rose back to their feet moments later, all evidence of the damage they had sustained gone.

  Aquilius saw one of the necron warriors stoop and pick up its own arm, which had been blown off with a melta gun blast. Sparks spat from the robotic xenos’ shattered shoulder, but as the severed limb was placed back against the joint the sparks stopped. Metal ran like quicksilver as the joint reformed. Within the space of a heartbeat the limb was reattached, and the necron continued its relentless advance, climbing the stairs towards them.

  The front ranks of the enemy were only metres away now, each heavy step bringing them ever closer.

  Apart from the echoing stamp of their metal feet striking the marble in perfect unison and the crackling discharge of their weapons, the necrons made no other sound as they advanced. The lack of battle cries, the absence of screams of pain and cries of victory was, to Aquilius’ way of thinking, more ominous and unnerving even than the frenzied ranting of the traitor Word Bearers.

  Step by step, the necrons closed the distance, until they reached the cluster of White Consuls at the feet of the golden statue of the God-Emperor. They hefted their weapons over their heads, intent on bringing them crashing down upon the blue helms of the Astartes. Aquilius saw that curving axe-blades of alien design jutted from beneath their deadly guns, and while the xenos were neither particularly swift nor skilled, they wielded them with deadly intent, their blows heavy and powerful.

  Power swords hummed as they carved through skulls and alien ribcages, melting easily through living metal. Chainswords tore chunks out of skeletal limbs, and bolters fired at point-blank range sent obliterated necrons tumbling back down the stairs into their comrades.

  Aquilius fired his bolt pistol, blowing out the back of the skull of one enemy before switching targets and gunning down another necron with a burst of fire. The mass reactive explosive rounds detonated within the xenos’ skeletal chest, ripping it apart. It fell without a sound but was replaced by another, stepping mechanically forward to take its place.

  The ammunition counter on the back of his pistol was counting down steadily, and he was on his last sickle-clip. His last few shots were measured and deliberate, careful to ensure that every last bolt took down an enemy. With his final bolt, he gunned down a necron as it hefted its heavy weapon back over its head to strike him down. The shot struck it in one of its baleful, glowing eyes, and its head was split in two as it exploded, the ruin of its skull hanging from its spinal column. Still, it did not fall.

  Aquilius gave a grunt of frustration as the two halves of the necron’s skull came back together, the damage self-repairing seamlessly. Tossing aside his bolt pistol, the Coadjutor grasped the pole of the Chapter banner in both hands, wielding it like a spear. The base of the pole was spiked, and with a grunt of effort, he drove it into the necron’s chest, smashing it backwards.

  Something clutched at Aquilius’ leg, and he looked down into the inhuman, emotionless face of a necron. Its slender, skeletal hands scrabbled at his armour, seeking purchase. The wretched thing was missing its entire lower body and had only one arm, but its eyes still burnt with cold, alien fury. Even rent limb from limb, the inhuman imperative to kill drove the creature on. The Coadjutor kicked it away from him in disgust, and drew his chainsword.

  Looking out across the nave, Aquilius saw a sea of glowing witchfire eyes in the gloom, closing in around them inexorably. There seemed to be thousands of the alien warrior-constructs closing in around them, far too many for them to have any hope of survival.

  It would only be minutes at best before it was over, Aquilius realised.

  As if to emphasise the hopelessness of the situation, the Coadjutor heard a gasp of pain and, as he kicked the body of a necron off the wildly revving blade of his chainsword, he glanced over his shoulder to see Librarian Epistolary Liventius fall to his knees, blood pumping from his chest. A gaping hole ran completely through the aged Librarian, and a necron warrior stood over him, its weapon raised. Aquilius cried out and tried to turn, to interpose himself between them, but he was too slow.

  With a devastating force, the necron warrior brought the heavy axe-blade of its weapon down upon the Librarian’s skull with a sickening, wet crack. The dark blade was embedded down to the teeth, and while the automaton struggled to pull it free, Aquilius stepped forward and smashed his chainsword across its face. It reeled backwards, but the damage had been done, and Liventius fell face forwards to the ground, the weapon that had slain him still embedded in his head.

  There were only four White Consuls left alive now. So many of his brothers had died, so many warriors that were far more important than he—Chapter Master Valens, Librarian Epistolary Liventius, Captain Decimus, Proconsul Ostorius. It seemed perverse that such mighty warriors had been slain while he yet lived.

  Aquilius gritted his teeth. If he were to die this day, and it seemed a certainty that such would be his fate, he swore that he would take as many of the enemy down with him as he could. He swore that he would make his ancestors proud.

  “For the Emperor!” he roared, before hurling himself into the fray.

  The Undying One’s head snapped around sharply. The baleful pinpricks of its soulless eyes glowed brightly, and they roamed across the square, searching. Hovering a metre above the ground, the ancient being rotated smoothly on the spot, head turning to and fro as it sought the origin of the energy build-up that it detected nearby.

  With an elegant movement it extended one of its slender limbs, and a cloud of tiny scarabs burst from the darkness beneath its shroud. The tiny, robotic insects flew up to the Undying One’s hand as its long, needle-like fingers unfurled. They began to latch onto each other, each scarab grasping its neighbour with barbed leg and mandible. The tiny creatures locked into place and become motionless, forming a two-metre-long staff. Its shape completed, the scarabs melted together to create a smooth, seamless implement. At either end of the weapon, green light flared, creating a pair of energy blades that crackled with barely contained potency.

  With a grace far beyond that of its servants, the Undying One swung the twin-bladed staff around it in a glittering arc and waited for its enemy to appear.

  Responding to the unspoken orders of their master, the Undying One’s bodyguard stood to
attention, energy surging through their long-bladed warscythes.

  Surrounded on all sides by endless phalanxes of motionless necron warriors, a shimmering light began to materialise within the centre of the square, swiftly followed by a hundred others. They gleamed and flickered, like dense clusters of fireflies, and within a fraction of a second they began to solidify into ghostly figures. With a sharp crack of displacing air, a hundred Terminator-armoured warriors of the cult Anointed teleported in from the Infidus Diabolus.

  The immense shape of the Warmonger appeared amongst them, the immense killing machine one of the few remaining Dreadnoughts capable of such deployment. At the Word Bearer’s fore materialised the Host’s war leader and Coryphaus, Kol Badar, Dark Apostle Marduk at his side.

  The Dark Apostle was encased within an ancient suit of Terminator armour, its deep red plates lustrous and gleaming. The armour was edged with barbed dark metal, and thousands of holy passages from the Book of Lorgar had been painstakingly engraved across its plates in tiny Colchisite cuneiform script. His own matted fur cloak was thrown over the immense shoulders of his new armour, and in his right hand he held his staff of office, his deadly crozius arcanum, its bladed tip crackling with energy. In his left he held an archaic, daemon-mawed combi-bolter, a weapon last wielded by the Warmonger himself during the battle for the Emperor’s Palace on Terra.

  The Terminator armour had not been worn for over nine thousand years, not since the Warmonger—then the 34th Host’s Dark Apostle—was fatally wounded and had been peeled from it before being interred within his eternal sarcophagus prison. The revered suit of armour had been dutifully repaired, yet no one had ever been bold enough to have donned it since. For millennia it had remained dormant, empty and unused, locked away in the sepulchre of the great hero. Now, at the urging of the Warmonger, it tasted battle once more. Within his skull-faced helm, Marduk grinned savagely, rejoicing in the feeling of power that the suit conveyed. He felt like a god.