[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  “The defences of this world are pitiful,” said Marduk. “The majority of the standing defence force has already been vacated. Darioq-Grendh’al picked up an incoming transmission as he gathered the information. The xenos invasion is expected to make planet-fall within the next sixty-three hours. Sixty-two hours now,” he corrected.

  “Sixty-two hours,” said Kol Badar. “This foolish mission cannot be achieved in sixty-two hours.”

  “Find a way,” retorted Marduk.

  “It cannot be done,” said Kol Badar hotly. “It could not be done even were we to encounter zero opposition. I suggest that we vacate this place. There is nothing of value to our Legion here.”

  “I am not asking for your council, Kol Badar,” said Marduk. “You are the Coryphaus. You enact my will. I am giving you an order; make it happen.”

  “The xenos will have commenced their invasion before we are back on the surface,” said Kol Badar.

  “Explain to me how that changes anything?” snapped Marduk, losing patience. “If they get in our way, we kill them. It is not complicated.”

  “You wish to be here in the midst of a full-scale invasion? With less than thirty warriors?”

  “That is the voice of cowardice, Kol Badar,” said Marduk, his voice low and dangerous. “You shame the Legion and the position of Coryphaus with your fear.”

  Kol Badar’s eyes flashed, and he ground his teeth, clenching his power talons. Burias, sitting opposite, grinned.

  “You go too far, you whoreson whelp,” said Kol Badar, his eyes blazing with fury.

  “Learn your place, Kol Badar,” growled Marduk, leaning in to the bigger warrior and snarling in his face. “Jarulek is dead. I am the power of the Host. Me! The Host is mine, and mine alone. You are mine, and I will discard you if you prove of no use to me.”

  Kol Badar bared his teeth, and Marduk could see him fighting to restrain himself from lashing out. With the fall of Jarulek, there was no question as to who was next in line. Marduk, as First Acolyte, was rightfully the leader of the Host, at least until such a time as the Council of Sicarus deemed otherwise.

  Marduk knew Kol Badar well. They had fought alongside each other in a thousand wars since the fall of the Warmaster Horus, and over that time he had come to understand, and despise, what he was. The Coryphaus was a deeply regimented warrior, who clung to ordained command structures and protocols with an almost holy fervour. Marduk had always seen it as a weakness, and had goaded the Coryphaus regarding it, many times.

  “You should have been born into Guilliman’s Legion,” he had said on more than one occasion, drawing a parallel between Kol Badar’s stifling adherence to command structures and official stratagems of the puritanical weaklings of the Ultramarines.

  Doubtless, there was a certain strength in Kol Badar’s dogmatism. The Coryphaus had commanded the Host in battle thousands of times, and his understanding of the ebb and flow of combat, when to push forward and when to pull back, was second to none. In truth, Marduk had come to value the keen, perhaps brilliant, strategic mind of the Coryphaus, though his refusal to adopt more unconventional tactics was infuriating at times.

  For all that, Marduk felt assured that if he pushed home his unquestionable position in the hierarchy of the Host, then the Coryphaus would back down. After ten thousand years of adherence to strict military hierarchy, Kol Badar would be lost to madness and insanity were he to abandon it.

  Respect can wait, thought Marduk. For now, it is enough that he does what I wish.

  “I am the leader of the Host,” continued Marduk, still staring into Kol Badar’s eyes, “and you will obey my will.”

  Marduk felt the power of Chaos build within him, as if the gods of the immaterium were pleased. Things writhed painfully beneath the skin of his skull, and he smiled as he saw Kol Badar’s eyes widen.

  “Never question me, Kol Badar,” said Marduk evenly. “Continue.”

  Kol Badar’s thick jaw tensed, but he lowered his gaze from Marduk’s, and stabbed a finger towards the schematic in his hands.

  “We use that hub to gain entry to the tunnel, and proceed along the access way into the heart of the hab-station. We secure one of the lifts located here,” he growled, pointing, “which will take us to the mining facility on the ocean floor. This here,” he said, zooming in on the data-slate, through dozens of floors and focusing on a specific part of the mining facility, “is the last recorded location of the explorator. The hulk crashed to the ocean floor around twelve kilometres distant from the facility. Here, the explorator boarded a maintenance submersible to investigate the wreck. He never returned. I would surmise that the explorator fool is still within the hulk, or dead.”

  Marduk nodded.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “I still say this is a fool’s errand,” said Kol Badar.

  “Your opinion has been duly noted, Coryphaus,” said Marduk. “Now, pass the word. We move on that air recycling hub.”

  Approaching the air recycling station unobserved had been pathetically easy. The armed forces of the moon were virtually non-existent, most of them having already been evacuated, and the one patrol they had encountered on the ice flows had been destroyed with consummate ease.

  It was insulting, Kol Badar thought as he had killed.

  Clouds of steam rose from the turbine vents that cycled air into the tunnels deep in the ice below, and the hub station had been protected merely by thick rockcrete walls and a reinforced door, half buried in the snow. There were no guards posted on its walls.

  There had been no sign of a living presence at all, cowering inside against the storm like frightened rodents, Kol Badar had correctly surmised.

  He had ripped the door from its hinges and hurled it away, before stalking into the interior of the complex. The Land Raiders were situated half a kilometre away, hidden completely in the storm, where they would remain until this fool’s errand of a task was completed.

  He had been angry when the first shouts of warning from the Imperials within the complex had reached his ears, and he stormed into their midst, ripping them apart with concentrated bursts of his combi-bolter, tearing arms from sockets with his power talon.

  It had taken only minutes to gain control of the facility.

  It was strange, though; it appeared that the enemy had known they were coming, and prepared some hasty defences. No, that was not correct. They knew something was coming, but they had not barricaded the door out onto the ice, but rather, the entrance to the stairwell that led down to the access tunnel fifty metres below, as if they expected an attack from there.

  “Don’t try to understand them,” he reminded himself. “They are heathen, blinded fools. Their ways are madness.”

  Kol Badar levelled his combi-bolter at the last of the civilian workers. The man was breathing hard, staring up at the towering Terminator-armoured warrior in abject terror.

  A waste of ammunition, the Coryphaus decided, and lifted the barrel of his weapon from the target. A flash of hope reared in the Imperial citizen’s eyes, but that was extinguished quickly as Kol Badar stepped menacingly towards him.

  “Please, no,” wailed the man, shaking his head as the Coryphaus loomed above him.

  Kol Badar grabbed the man around one shoulder, power talons digging deep into flesh. Then he slammed the pistol-grip butt of his combi-bolter into his face, splintering his nose. The man’s skull was caved inwards by the shocking blow, killing him instantly, but the Coryphaus continued to strike, until the man’s face was an unrecognisable mash of blood and flesh.

  He dropped the Imperial worker to the ground, feeling a small amount of satisfaction, though it did little to abate his simmering rage.

  Why had Jarulek left him, allowing the whelp Marduk to assume control of the Host? For months, he had raged at Jarulek’s failing. Long had he hated the First Acolyte, and long had he waited to kill him, just as Marduk had killed Kol Badar’s blood brother so long ago.

  He would have killed Marduk then and there ha
d not Jarulek stayed his hand.

  “Not now,” the Dark Apostle had said, though at that time he had been nothing more than a First Acolyte himself. “He will be yours to kill, but not yet. He has a purpose yet to perform.”

  It had been three hundred years into the Great Crusade, and Kol Badar had waited long and impatiently for his time to come, but waited he had, through all the long spanning millennia, until at last his time had come.

  “If we both return, then you may kill Marduk, my Coryphaus. Your honour will be fulfilled,” Jarulek had said, just moments before he had descended into the heart of the xenos pyramid on Tanakreg. The pleasure of finally being given free rein to kill the whelp had been ecstatic. That had been shattered when only Marduk had returned.

  “Damn you, Jarulek,” said Kol Badar to himself.

  “You should dispose of him,” said Burias in a voice low enough for none but Marduk to hear him. “The insubordinate old bastard is long past his time. He is a weight hanging around the neck of the Host, and he will drag it down, slowly but surely.”

  “You still hunger for power, Burias?” asked Marduk.

  “Of course,” replied Burias sharply, his eyes flashing. “Such is our teaching.”

  “That is true, icon bearer,” said Marduk.

  “He does not fear you,” said Burias.

  “What?” asked Marduk.

  “Kol Badar. He feared Jarulek, we all did, but he does not fear you.”

  “Perhaps not yet,” agreed Marduk, “but he will come to. I am changing, Burias. I feel the touch of the gods upon me.”

  Burias sniffed, savouring the air. There was an electrical tang in the air that left an acrid taste upon his tongue, a sensation he had long come to embrace and recognise for what it was: Chaos.

  Jarulek had exuded a potent aura so strong that it made those of lesser faith bleed from their ears, and this was the same, though admittedly less potent, force.

  “If he does not learn his place,” said Marduk in a low voice, “and soon, then I shall allow you to take him. I would enjoy watching you rend him limb from limb.”

  Burias grinned savagely.

  “But that time is not yet,” reminded Marduk.

  “No life signs detected, Coryphaus,” said one of the members of the 13th, looking at the gleaming red flashes on the blister-screen of his corrupted auspex, “though there are cooling heat signatures ahead. Possible weapons discharge.”

  “Understood,” growled the war leader.

  Burias placed one hand upon the cold metal surface of the door and closed his eyes.

  “The air within is rich with fear,” he said.

  “Good. That will work in our favour,” said Kol Badar. “Burias, take point. Go.”

  Without ceremony, Burias kicked the door off its hinges, wrenching the reinforced steel out of shape and sending it smashing inwards.

  A steel landing extended beyond, and Burias moved forward warily, his bolt pistol in one hand, the holy icon of the Host in his other. The landing was narrow, and a steel stairway descended from it. Moving swiftly and silently, elegant and perfectly balanced despite his bulk, Burias stepped down the steel stairs that led into a corridor. The hallway extended ten metres ahead, before turning sharply to the right.

  The walls, carved from solid ice, radiated cold, though he barely registered the sub-zero temperature. Moving swiftly forwards, his every daemonically enhanced sense alert, Burias rounded the corner and came up against a mesh-link fence that rose from floor to ceiling, barring the way forward. A chained gate was set into the fence, and a frozen corpse was slumped outside it.

  Curious, Burias moved forwards. It was the body of a man, wearing the same white plas armour as the soldiers they had fought at the Imperial bastion. One hand was clutching at the locked gate. Clearly, the man had been shot down while attempting to flee, but the locked gate had barred his progress. Half a dozen dark splinters were embedded in his armoured back plate, and Burias frowned.

  The icon bearer holstered his bolt pistol and grasped the heavy chain that secured the gate shut.

  With a sharp jerk, he snapped the heavy chain and dropped it to the ground. He wrenched the gate open and the corpse of the enemy soldier was dragged across the floor as it swung wide; frozen, dead fingers locked around the mesh-links.

  Stepping over the corpse, Burias continued along the corridor. After several twisting turns and intersections, it opened out into an access tunnel at least fifty metres wide. Down the centre of the tunnel was a sunken carriageway, and two wide platforms ran alongside it.

  Moving warily into the tunnel, Burias stepped over wreckage and debris, amongst which were sprawled a number of corpses. Their bodies had been slashed by blades and ripped apart by unfamiliar projectile weapons. Several burnt out vehicles were scattered throughout the tunnel, like the discarded toys of a giant. Several were upturned and leaning against the walls, while others had fallen into the sunken carriageway.

  Climbing atop one of the ruined armoured vehicles, Burias squinted into the distance in each direction. There was no living soul in sight, though the gently curving tunnel ensured that the icon bearer could see no more than half a kilometre ahead.

  He dropped onto the bonnet of the white-armoured APC, which buckled inwards beneath his weight, and stepped lightly to the floor.

  “All clear,” he said into his vox-relay. “Looks like someone got here before us.”

  As the remainder of the Host moved on his position, he dropped to his haunches to inspect one of the corpses.

  It was another of the white-armoured soldiers, whose face was purple and had swollen like a balloon. Burias plucked a long, barbed splinter from the corpse’s neck, and studied it with interest. It was half the length of a finger, and so thin that if he turned it sideways it was all but invisible. He lifted it carefully to his lips, and his tongue flashed out to sample the serrated tip.

  The taste was acrid, and he registered unknown toxic agents upon the splinter. He tasted blood as the barbed shard sliced his tongue.

  Xenos toxins entered his bloodstream, and his limbs began to shudder. A slight sweat broke out on his brow, and he lifted a shaking hand in front of his eyes, attempting to keep it steady, but failing.

  He felt the unknown serum coursing its way towards his twin hearts, but remained unconcerned. Indeed, as soon as the venom had entered his bloodstream, his bio-engineered defences had activated, and were even now isolating and breaking down the xenos poison. His heart rate increased as his body combated the threat, pumping his blood swiftly through his oolitic kidney implant, cleansing it of the deadly serum.

  After less than a minute, Burias’s heart rate had returned to normal and the shaking sickness had left him.

  “Intriguing,” he said to himself.

  The coteries had been moving through the tunnel system for about an hour. They had encountered no sign of life, though there was evidence of furious firefights. The tunnels were as silent as tombs, and cold light blazed down upon them from the rows of strip-lights overhead. Abruptly the lights flickered abruptly and died.

  “Five unknowns, moving on our position,” barked Namar-sin, breaking the silence. “Coming fast. Very fast.”

  Marduk and the Stetavoc Space Marines of Namar-sin’s coterie were instantly moving for cover. A faint whine could be heard, approaching rapidly.

  “Ware the north,” Marduk bellowed, just as five blurred shapes roared out of the darkness of the side tunnel, moving with impossible speed. They scythed through the air, skimming two metres above the ground and banked sharply into the access tunnel. They were as sleek and deadly as knives, and shot forward as their engines were gunned.

  Khalaxis and his coterie were caught in the open, and before they could even raise their weapons to fire, three of their number were cut down beneath a hail of barbed projectiles.

  Another was dropped as the jetbikes streaked through the coterie, a curved blade slicing off one of the warrior brother’s arms, severing it at the elbow.<
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  Then the jetbikes were past, hurtling by the Word Bearers and jinking around the scattered debris.

  Bolters coughed, lighting up the darkness, but they were too slow and the enemy too fast. One of the Anointed unleashed the fury of his reaper autocannon, and hundreds of high calibre rounds chased the jetbikes as they banked around in a wide circle, passing behind the wreckage of the derailed carriages of the rail conveyance. The autocannon tore through the carriages of the train and ripped out great chunks from the rockcrete walls, but even the enhanced targeting sensors built into the Anointed’s Terminator armour could not match the speed of the enemy.

  Empty shell casings fell like rain from the mighty weapon, but the jetbikes roared on through the darkness unscathed. A missile, launched by one of Namar-sin’s Havoc Space Marines, streaked through the darkness towards one of the jetbikes as it rounded the debris. With preternatural reflexes, the jetbike’s rider spun his vehicle around in a spiralling corkscrew roll, and the missile passed beneath it harmlessly, impacting in a fiery explosion against the wall.

  Marduk fired his bolt pistol on semi-auto at the enemy silhouetted against the flames of the explosion, but even though he had compensated for their speed, still he was too slow.

  Two more of Khalaxis’s coterie were cut down as they scrambled for cover, and then the jetbikes were gone, disappearing up the tunnel that they had emerged from only seconds before.

  Kol Badar was roaring orders, and the remains of Khalaxis’s 17th coterie dragged their fallen brethren into cover.

  The one-armed Namar-sin and his heavy weapon toting Havoc warriors rose from their position and ran forwards, half-dropping into cover behind a wrecked Imperial vehicle while others took up position behind rockcrete pillars. They readied their heavy weapons, hefting them to shoulders or bracing them in their arms, their stances wide as they sought targets.