by Nick Kyme
It showed him plunging the ritual blade into his own throat, and blood fountaining out. In that release, the gateway to Lorgar was opened.
‘What madness is this...?’ he murmured.
He realised that he appeared nowhere else. Indeed, it seemed in the later images that it was his acolyte Marduk who was leading the Word Bearers through the portal. It was Marduk who had the holy book chained to his waist.
Jepeth spoke with certainty. ‘Through your blood shall your kin be reunited with your golden lord. So it has been ordained.’
Kor Phaeron stared at the images. Nemkhar looked at him, his eyes blazing with faith renewed.
‘To die in service to the Primordial Truth and the Legion, my lord... It is a great honour...’
‘And your sacrifice brings hope to many,’ Jepeth agreed. ‘You are a glorious martyr, my lord.’
The Master of the Faith turned, slowly. Warp-light flickered in his hateful eyes.
‘My fate is my own. Nemkhar, kill him.’
The prophet was genuinely shocked. He took a step back. ‘What? You cannot defy the gods’ will!’
Even Nemkhar faltered. ‘My lord?’
Kor Phaeron took a deep breath, infusing his words with the power of darkest sorcery.
‘Kill him!’
Nemkhar’s daemonic taint rose in an instant, his physical form altering even as he leapt at Jepeth. The old man was thrown to the dusty floor, screaming in fear and pain, before the Word Bearer silenced him with a ragged slash of his claws.
The chamber was suddenly silent, except for Nemkhar’s bestial panting and the crackle of burning sconces. Kor Phaeron glared down at the bloody ruin that now lay between them.
‘Where does your loyalty lie, brother?’
‘In my faith.’
‘And in me?’
‘Of course. My lord.’
‘Good. Burn everything here, Gal Vorbak. And speak of this to no one.’
Kor Phaeron emerged back into the light, with Lorgar’s ritual blade concealed beneath his robe. His followers were looking up in alarm.
‘My lord!’ cried Marduk, racing to his side. ‘The wards!’
The illusions concealing the valley from above were fading, leaving it exposed. Already, daemons were circling overhead, filling the air with their screams. The acolyte took Kor Phaeron’s arm, to steady him.
‘Where is the prophet?’
‘Dead. His prophecies were naught but lies.’
As he spoke, the Black Cardinal glanced towards Nemkhar, who had appeared from within the burning shrine. The Gal Vorbak warrior said nothing.
Sorcerous fire began to fall like burning rain. It streaked down amongst the Children of Sicarus. All was panic below. The crowd scattered, trampling those unfortunate enough to fall in their haste to escape.
‘My lord. She is here.’
A shining figure was descending in the fire. The Kairic Adept, Larazzar, stood upon a spiked disc, surrounded by flames of an ever-changing hue.
Marduk was ready with his pistol. ‘Do we shoot?’ he whispered.
‘No, my young acolyte. Not yet.’
Daemons and other twisted minions in flying chariots descended with Larazzar, regarding the Word Bearers with disdain. Kor Phaeron stepped forwards to meet her nonetheless, his hands clenching to fists.
‘But be ready,’ he added quietly.
Larazzar turned in his direction. She was tall and powerful, encased in fluted, electric-blue armour of elegant design. She had three arms, and bore a tall spear, its tip burning silently with an azure flame. Her helm was featureless and blank, yet Kor Phaeron felt her gaze upon him.
His skin tingled as she drew closer. Once, she might have been human. Now she was something else entirely.
She stepped off her floating disc. Where she walked, life sprouted, grass and tiny flowers manifesting wherever her boots made contact with the stone.
With one of her three hands, she pulled her helmet free. Her face was as he remembered it, the high cheekbones tinged blue and dark teardrop tattoos under her eyes. In place of hair, she had feathers, glossy black with an iridescent sheen. The third eye, ice-blue and flecked with gold, rolled open upon her forehead.
‘This is an unexpected changing of the fates, False Speaker,’ she said, her voice rich and even. ‘My master is pleased. Countless futures are being re-woven even now.’
Kor Phaeron gritted his teeth. ‘I will forge my own future.’
The warlord laughed.
‘You are a selfish, singular creature. Your actions have unravelled countless destinies. And yet... I am intrigued.’ She looked around, as if seeing her surroundings for the first time. ‘I have long sought this place. You have my thanks for revealing it to me.’
The daemons and mortal servants of the Kairic Adept continued to circle, waiting upon the word of their mistress. Kor Phaeron held his ground.
‘What is it you hope to achieve?’ he asked.
‘Immortality, of course. Subjugating this world is the final step towards that goal. The prophet Jepeth blocked my ascendency. Now, this obstacle is removed.’
Kor Phaeron could feel the gifts of the Primordial Annihilator upon her. Its touch bled from the warlord in palpabable waves. She was close to daemonhood – perhaps closer than she realised.
She regarded him curiously. ‘There is something about you. Let me offer you a proposal.’
‘A pact?’
‘Yes. One that will benefit us both. You will help me take this world, and slay all who oppose me.’
‘And in return?’
Larazzar’s triple-gaze hardened. ‘Colchis is burning. Your beloved world of empty cathedrals and meaningless prayer.’
The Word Bearers bristled. ‘Colchis has been destroyed?’ Marduk asked, his eyes wide.
‘You lie!’ Kor Phaeron hissed at the warlord. ‘She lies, brothers!’
‘No,’ Larazzar replied, unmoved. ‘It is already aflame. Or it will be. Time is not the steady stream that mortal minds perceive. Either way, you will never return there. I offer you this promise – help me ascend, and I will let you remain upon this world as my subjects. You will have my leave to remain here even after I have departed.’
Kor Phaeron looked away, considering her offer. His gaze dropped to the cowering Children of Sicarus, peering up from below. Larazzar did not notice them, or did not care.
‘The Golden One will be pleased that you have prepared the way. Sicarus will never burn like Colchis. You will have provided a bare sanctuary for him and the Legion when he needs it.’ She leaned closer. ‘And he will need it.’
‘And the pathetic wretches that call this place home?’
‘I will claim their flesh for the Changer of the Ways. Their prophecies will never be spoken again. Is that enough for you? Will we swear our pact?’
‘We will,’ Kor Phaeron sighed. He stepped forwards, offering his hand to seal the alliance in the ancient manner.
Larazzar stared down at the open gauntlet. ‘Then let it be so.’
Her power was staggering. It surged from her like water from a burst dam. For a moment the Black Cardinal saw Larazzar as she might be – a figure of towering might, with great, blue-sheened wings and coiling horns. The mortal members of Kor Phaeron’s retinue dropped to their knees, blood running from their eyes, ears and noses.
Upon the Children of Sicarus, the effect was far more devastating.
Men, women and children twitched and screamed as their bodies reformed with sudden and uncontrollable change. Bones broke as limbs bent and were remade, then remade again. Flesh and tendons tore as anatomy twisted and contorted, and spines rolled back upon themselves as new limbs and blindly groping protuberances. Gibbering mouths, cackling and whooping, split torsos. Taloned, multi-jointed hands tore bodies apart from within, birthing repulsive, pink-skinned daemons that giggled and leered.
Larazzar stood with her arms held wide. In the throes of her power, she did not sense Kor Phaeron looming behind her, the sacred
dagger of Lorgar Aurelian clasped in his hand.
He reached out and opened her throat with a single, deep cut.
‘Did the gods not show you this future, witch?’ he spat, hauling Larazzar off her feet. ‘Perhaps you are not as adept as you thought...’
Kor Phaeron held the gasping warlord aloft as her lifeblood gushed from severed arteries. The etheric energy surging from her was redirected into the Black Cardinal, and he shuddered as it flowed up his arms.
The servants of the Kairic Adept, mortal and daemon alike, screamed. Some tried to close on Kor Phaeron, talons and blades reaching, but he hurled them back with crackling arcs of black lightning.
Dark-light blazed within him. Steam rose from his flesh, and his eyes flared with witch-fire.
Finally, he dropped the wasted corpse of Larazzar to the ground, and his exultant expression gave way to bitterness once more. As the last of her power bled from him, he became the same crippled, spiteful creature that he had always been.
‘The gods test me...’ he rumbled, ‘but I will not be broken. This world is mine.’
Kor Phaeron stood atop a rocky precipice, gazing upon the infinite vista of construction below.
Already the great cathedrals and spires of worship were climbing towards the burning heavens. Soaring scaffolds and plunging foundations divided the land, and endless columns of slaves, bound by chains and lashed by black-clad overseers, toiled in the depths. Monstrous beasts dragged great loads of stone and iron, while bound daemonhosts lifted arches and keystones into place with their potent magicks.
‘It is a grand vision, my master,’ said Marduk as he approached.
The Black Cardinal eyed him warily, even though he knew Jepeth’s false prophecies were no more. ‘It is indeed. Our lord Lorgar will be most pleased... Once we re-establish contact with the Legion.’
‘But if the Warmaster is victorious – or has already won – will any of it be needed? If he succeeds and throws down the false rule of the Emperor, the war will be over.’
Kor Phaeron looked again to the daemon world spread out before him. ‘Our part in Horus’ plan is done, for now, but the war will never be over. Such is the way of things. This world will be our refuge, our sanctuary. In the decades, the centuries and millennia to come, Sicarus will be the place where we can lick our wounds and gather our strength. It will be our staging ground, and the centre of our faith.’
He sneered inwardly at Marduk. The acolyte was hanging on his every word.
‘From here we will wage a war against the universe,’ he continued, grim certainty filling him for the first time that he could recall, ‘and enforce the will of the Primordial Annihilator. For we are the Bearers of the Word, and an eternity of blessed conflict awaits us.’
Kor Phaeron of the Word Bearers
EXOCYTOSIS
James Swallow
Dawn came to Zaramund in slow ranges of colour, yellowed streaks the shade of bruised flesh rising up across the vault of the sky and bringing with them gradual changes that crept across the dense, forested landscape.
Calas Typhon stood upon the ridge above the encampment and watched it come, his helmet dangling at the end of his arm and the low, cold breeze plucking at the matted hair of his unkempt beard. He imagined himself a fixed point in space and time, around which the cycle of Zaramund moved endlessly, his presence changeless and constant.
Dawn and dusk, night and day, these things were trivial and distant concepts to a legionary, trimmed from Typhon’s existence along with hundreds of other small, human things that his kind lost when they were transformed. He had no need to sleep or to fuel his body in human ways, and it had been so long since he had known need of these things that they had become alien in concept. In his deep past, the man who was now First Captain of the Death Guard Legion had progressed through a state-change that irrevocably rewrote his physical nature.
A dawning of my better self, he considered, with a brief, bleak smile.
The moment of amusement guttered out like a snuffed candle as his usual dour mien replaced it. Typhon’s brow furrowed as he tried to grasp the ephemeral edges of the thought that had been tormenting him ever since they had arrived on Zaramund – even before that, if he were honest with himself. He could almost form the idea, but every time he reached for it, it retreated. It was like running his fingers through the flow of a river, seeking one single ebb of current. The truth was infuriatingly beyond his reach, a phantom retreating into the warp, and even after the hours Typhon had spent up here in isolation and self-reflection, it still escaped him.
He let the moment of reverie crumble and his gaze tracked a heavy shuttle as it lifted off from one of the temporary landing pads on the south side of the encampment. The brick-shaped craft rose into the lightening sky on crackling thruster bells, carrying aboard it new components and equipment for the repairs to the Terminus Est and the other vessels in his flotilla. Typhon watched the shuttle shrink to a dot, and high above he picked out the constellation of bright morning stars that were his battle-barge and its sister ships, drifting up there in a low, geostationary orbit.
The warship had suffered greatly, and there had been a moment when Typhon feared that Zaramund might become her grave marker. But the fates had a way of confounding a warrior’s expectations. Instead of battle, the Terminus Est had found a safe harbour and an unusual welcome from a quarter that Typhon had never expected: Luther and his renegade Dark Angels, planting their standard next to that of the Warmaster Horus Lupercal…
As much as this turn of events was welcome to the Death Guard, Typhon could not help but be suspicious of it. But then, was that not the nature of the sons of Barbarus? To distrust all that could not be seen and touched and broken?
Typhon shook off the thought with a flick of his head, removing a gauntlet and raising a hand to run it over his close-cropped temple. Luther’s generosity was, like it or not, sorely needed by the First Captain and his Grave Wardens. Expedience overruled distrust.
For the moment.
The thought faded as Typhon’s fingers found a new lesion on his scalp, hidden in the greasy layers of his hair. He tried not to dwell upon it, but his hand slipped to the back of his neck where the mottling of his skin had begun several weeks earlier. There was a cluster of livid boils there, a triad of them that were strangely cold to the touch. Other marks elsewhere on his body, similar in kind but better hidden in the crevices of his musculature, were slowly growing more numerous.
And yet, they caused him no pain. If anything, Typhon felt physically stronger than he ever had, as if he were improving with each passing day. Am I unwell? The question echoed in his mind, and it seemed ridiculous. Inconceivable! I am a Death Guard, the obdurate and unrelenting. There is no known toxin or sickness that can lay us low.
He wanted to laugh off the thought, but it nagged at him. Typhon became aware of a few tiny, black flies circling his head, little things barely larger than motes of dust, and he swatted lazily at them as he spied a figure approaching up the incline of the ridge.
The other Death Guard removed his helmet as he approached and halted a few metres away, giving a shallow bow. Hadrabulus Vioss was a captain of Typhon’s Grave Wardens, and his master’s right hand. ‘My lord,’ he began, ‘you have been vox-silent for some time. Your communications circuit registers as deactivated.’
Typhon glanced down at his helm, then away. ‘I required some time to think, nothing more. What is it that you want, kinsman?’
‘Not I, First Captain.’ The Grave Warden’s shorn scalp bobbed. ‘The Dark Angel, Luther. He wishes to speak with you.’
‘Reasons?’
Vioss’ lips thinned. ‘Are you asking me to guess?’
Typhon made a gesture for him to continue, and his second-in-command took a breath.
‘I think he wants us to stand with him. To speak well of him, to the Warmaster.’
‘Luther is gauging the price he will ask in return for aiding us.’
Vioss nodded. ‘Aye.�
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Typhon pushed away the thoughts that had been clouding his mind and took a step forward. The synthetic musculature beneath the heavy ceramite plates of his Terminator armour hissed gently, and he turned his helmet in his hands as he reactivated its systems.
‘He is a warrior of Caliban, after all,’ he added, after a long moment. ‘They all have a hunter’s eye for the calculations of warfare.’
‘We will owe him a debt,’ noted Vioss.
‘Indeed,’ Typhon allowed, and started down the ridge towards the camp. ‘But there are other scales that need to be balanced before his.’
‘There is much to be done,’ muttered Luther, his hooded gaze searching the hololithic chart table before him. Dull light from the display underlit his face and the low ceiling of the command chamber. Above the glassy surface of the table, renderings of nearby worlds turned along their orbital plots, and clusters of dark-green arrowheads – indicators suggesting starship deployments – swam in the void zones between them. ‘If he’s out there… we need to be ready to meet him with force when the time comes.’
‘Corswain,’ said the Lord Cypher, considering the name. ‘If what the Death Guard told us was true, then allowing Typhon’s warriors to rest here may draw him to us.’
Luther shot him a warning look. ‘Is that censure in your words, brother?’ Before Cypher could reply, he went on. ‘Use your gifts. If the Lion’s lapdog has our scent, we will build a snare for him when he comes.’
‘I have sensed nothing,’ admitted the psyker. He paused, then lowered his voice. ‘Perhaps you will enlighten me, lord. Perhaps you will tell me what it is we gain from aiding Mortarion’s men.’
The answer, shaded with derision, slipped from the mouth of another Dark Angel who stood close by, his gaze lost in the hololithic display. ‘Such allies…’ The captain realised that he had spoken out of turn and bowed slightly. ‘Forgive me, Lord Luther. I did not mean to–’
Luther cut him off with a blade-like motion of his hand. ‘Speak your mind, Vastobal.’