Twice, the Word Bearers were ambushed en route, genestealers launching blinding attacks that saw two more warriors injured, one sustaining a deep wound in his side that would have killed a mortal man, and the other, one of the last members of Khalaxis’s coterie, had half his face ripped off. He stoically continued on, hurling aside his sundered helmet and gritting his teeth, refusing to succumb to the pain in front of such vaunted warriors as his champion, the Coryphaus and the First Acolyte. Marduk had nodded his respect to the warrior, who had puffed out his chest and struggled on, pushing through the pain, at the unexpected acknowledgement.
They had not encountered any enemy for more than fifteen minutes, and they picked up the pace as they closed on the location of the submersibles, keeping a wary eye on the throbbing blister screen of their tainted auspex.
The Flames of Perdition shifted suddenly, the prow of the massive ship dropping as it tore loose from the submerged cliff. The entire ship tilted, and Marduk lost his footing as the floor tipped beneath him.
The Word Bearers were thrown to their left, smashing into the side wall of the passage as the immense freighter lurched. One of them tumbled down a side-corridor that was more like a vertical shaft, fingers scrabbling vainly for purchase. Marduk flailed for a handhold amidst the piping on the left wall, but found none, and began to slide down the corridor-shaft behind the power-armoured brother Space Marine.
Burias-Drak’shal held out his icon, his other hand grasping onto a side-rail as other Word Bearers tumbled past. Marduk reached and grabbed the proffered icon, fingers locking around its barbed haft, and Burias-Drak’shal hauled him to safety. With a nod of thanks, Marduk pulled his body over the lip of the shaft, dragging himself forward on his belly.
The ship rolled onto its side, its nose still tipping, before it finally came to rest, settling into its new position.
Outside, rocks dislodged from the chasm walls by the immense weight of the freighter dropped down into the abyss, tumbling down into the darkness.
“Who have we lost?” growled Kol Badar, picking himself up from the ground, ripping his power talons from the wall, which had been the ceiling.
“Darioq-Grendh’al?” said Marduk in concern.
“He’s here,” said Burias, pushing the daemon back within him as he picked himself up.
The corrupted magos’s mechadendrites had shot outwards, clamping to walls like the legs of a spider, halting his fall.
“Rhamel is gone,” growled Khalaxis.
“Is he the only one?” asked Marduk.
“Yes,” said Kol Badar, looking around, “but the ship could fall at any moment. We have to get out of here.”
“Where is he?” asked Marduk, looking down over the lip of the corridor-shaft. It extended some fifty metres before disappearing into the gloom that even his augmented sight could not penetrate.
Khalaxis cursed. “The auspex is gone,” he said.
“Brother Rhamel?” asked Kol Badar through the inter-vox.
A static-filled voice came back, though it was distorted and patchy.
“…amel… broken arm… faulty…” came the response.
“His vox is damaged,” said Marduk.
“He is not getting up there with a broken arm,” said Burias, assessing the climb. “You want me to go get him?”
“We don’t have the time,” snapped Kol Badar.
Burias looked over at Marduk, who reluctantly nodded his head in agreement. Khalaxis stared down the vertical corridor, his hands clenched around the hilt of his chainaxe. Rhamel was Khalaxis’s blood-brother, having come from the same cult-gang on Colchis before the hated Ultramarines’ cyclonic torpedoes had destroyed the Word Bearers’ home world ten thousand years earlier. Together, they had been amongst the last batch of aspirants taken from the obliterated world.
“Brother Rhamel,” said Kol Badar, “proceed to the rendezvous point. We will meet you there. Repeat, proceed to the rendezvous point.”
“…cknowledged… phaus,” came the stilted reply.
“Come,” said Kol Badar to the rest of the dwindling group of warrior brothers. “If he makes it, he makes it. If not, then it is the will of the gods,” he said mockingly, with a nod towards Marduk.
Khalaxis stood stone still, looking down into the darkness.
“May the gods be with you, my brother,” said Khalaxis, before turning away.
The Word Bearers renewed their advance. With the ship on its side, the way they had come was foreign. What had been familiar was now strange, and where before they had advanced easily, they were now forced to half-climb through doorways that were horizontal, and half-leap across vertical corridors shafts that fell away below them.
The power-armoured warrior brothers leapt these expanses with ease, but the progress was not so easy for the bulky Terminator-armoured Anointed warriors, and Marduk ground his sharp teeth in frustration at their slow progress, drawing blood.
Burias ripped a pair of thick support girders from the walls, and dropped them over one of the expanses, and Kol Badar and his Anointed shuffled across them, though the girders strained beneath their weight.
Last to come was Darioq-Grendh’al, and Marduk swore.
“They will not take his weight,” hissed Kol Badar.
The corrupted magos, with his full servo-harness and plasma-core generator attached to his back, weighed almost twice as much as one of the Terminator-armoured Anointed warriors, and Marduk swore again, knowing that the Coryphaus was correct.
“We’ll have to find another way round,” said Marduk, his voice terse with frustration.
“Wait,” said Burias, a smile playing on his lean face.
Marduk looked up to see the magos traversing the gap, his mechanical legs hanging beneath him in midair. Half-mechanical, half-fleshy mechadendrite tentacles punched through the panels in the ceiling, gripping tight as the corrupted magos’s four immense servo-arms extended out to either side at full stretch, gripping the girders there. With a surprised barking laugh, Marduk watched as two of the servo-arms released their grips and reached forwards to grasp the girders further along, before releasing its other arms, and repeating the manoeuvre. Mechadendrites pulled free overhead before punching through the ceiling panels further along.
It was like watching some multi-armed, mechanical ape making its way through the treetops, and even Kol Badar was taken aback by the bizarre spectacle. The magos lowered himself safely to the floor once more, his daemon-eye glinting.
“Full of surprises,” said Marduk.
In the distance, they heard the percussive echoes of boltgun fire, and knew that the enemy had found Brother Rhamel. Khalaxis was tense and brooding, and the other warriors kept a respectful distance from the champion.
Marduk patted Khalaxis on the shoulder, and the Word Bearers pressed on in silence.
Brother Rhamel pumped shot after shot into the never-ending swarm of genestealers coming at him. He had five confirmed kills, the bodies of the xenos creatures lying motionless on the ground, but they were coming at him from two directions, and he knew that it was just a matter of time before they overwhelmed him. The red icon warning him of low ammunition had been flashing before his eyes for some time, and he watched with grim finality as the icons displaying his last rounds were slowly depleted.
His left arm hung useless at his side, broken in three places. Turning to the left, he shot another genestealer in the head, before swinging back to the right and taking another one high in the chest, the percussive blast hurling it backwards.
Squeezing the trigger once more, he fired the last of his bolts, and dropped his useless weapon to the ground. He tossed the last of his frag grenades down one of the corridors, turning his back to the resultant blast and unslinging his heavy blade from his waist.
The blast of the grenade knocked him forwards a step as flame rolled up the corridor at his back. Steadying himself, he passed the wide blade before him, knowing that the end was near.
A handful of genestealer
s were stalking towards him, their backs hunched and their eyes glittering hatefully. They moved slowly, readying to pounce, as if knowing that their prey was all but defenceless.
“Come on, you whoresons!” Rhamel roared as a fresh batch of combat drugs was injected into his body.
One of the xenos creatures hissed in response, ropes of saliva dripping from its fangs. Feeling movement behind him, Rhamel flicked a glance around, and saw another half a dozen of the genestealers creeping forwards at his flank.
“Come on! Finish me!” Rhamel bellowed, keeping both groups of aliens in his field of vision.
At some unspoken command, both groups leapt forwards, covering the distance with horrifying speed.
Rhamel swung in towards the first creature, his blade biting deep into its snarling face, cracking its skull. The genestealer wrenched its head to the side, almost dragging the blade from Rhamel’s hand, but the Word Bearer ripped his sword clear and stabbed it into the open mouth of another genestealer as it lunged towards him.
He buried the blade deep in the creature’s throat, and hot xenos blood bubbled from the wound. He had no time to drag his sword clear, however, before he was overwhelmed. He was smashed to the ground, losing his grip on his weapon, and he bellowed at the pain that shot through his broken arm.
Gritting his teeth, murmuring a final prayer to the gods of the ether, he waited for the killing blow to fall. It never came.
One of the creatures was crouching over him, pinning him to the floor. Rhamel strained within its grasp, powerless against its strength. Its hot breath fogged the eye lenses of his helmet.
“Do it,” he roared in the genestealer’s face. “Kill me!”
The alien leant forward and a thick rope of drool dripped from its maw onto Rhamel’s helmet. With a darting movement, the xenos creature stabbed its tongue towards his neck. The powerful proboscis punched through his armour and sank into his neck. It stung painfully, and Rhamel roared.
Then the creature pushed off him, scuttling backwards.
Rhamel staggered to his feet, scrabbling for his blade. He stood in a fighting crouch, ready for the creatures to revert back to their murderous nature and come at him once more, to rend him limb from limb, but they continued to back away from him, slipping into the darkness.
In an instant, they were gone, and Rhamel was left alone.
His vision swam, and the throbbing pain of his neck wound made him wince. He presumed that his body’s enhanced metabolism was working hard to overcome whatever foul poison had been injected into him, and he fought the sudden lethargy that assailed him.
Whatever had been done to him, he felt certain that his enhanced metabolism would combat it. No poison could kill one of the Legion, and he was confident that the discomfort he was feeling would pass with time.
Giving no more thought to the genestealer’s bizarre behaviour, Rhamel set off, loping down the eerily silent corridors at a kilometre-eating pace, working his way towards the rendezvous point.
Marduk heard the distant gunfire cease abruptly.
“He has become one with Chaos,” he said to Khalaxis, whose anger was palpable. “He was a fine warrior. Honour his memory.”
Khalaxis nodded his head, though his anger still seethed within him like a living thing.
It took them the better part of an hour to reach the submersibles, for they were forced to take a different path than they had travelled before, clambering up steep inclines, sliding down others, and navigating vertical shafts.
The holding deck where they had left the submersibles had been tipped onto its side when the ship had slipped, and the interior was only vaguely familiar. Only the bobbing shapes of the submersibles confirmed that they had reached their goal, though the aquatic vessels had been tossed around when the ship had shifted. One of them was stranded out of the water, like a beached deep-sea mammal, lying on its side on a gantry that had buckled beneath its weight.
With a clipped order, Kol Badar sent Burias clambering over the wreckage, and he leapt into the air to grab a ladder that was positioned horizontally above them. The icon bearer climbed hand over hand across the expanse of dark water before dropping down onto the top of one of the submersibles. He landed in a steady crouch, and grinned across the open water towards the others before unscrewing its top hatch and dropping down into its interior.
Within moments, Burias had powered the vessel to life, its twin spotlights piercing the dark water like a pair of glowing eyes, and manoeuvred it towards the waiting warriors of the Host, its impeller engines creating a whirlpool of turbulence.
One by one, the warriors stepped onto the submersible, clambering into its belly, until just Marduk, Khalaxis and Darioq-Grendh’al remained.
“You next,” said Marduk, nodding towards the corrupted magos.
“A biological entity approaches,” said Darioq-Grendh’al, and both Marduk and Khalaxis were instantly alert, weapons raised as they sought a target.
“I see nothing,” hissed Khalaxis.
“There,” said Marduk, nodding towards a darkened side-passage. His finger tensed on the trigger of his bolt pistol, before he relaxed and holstered the weapon.
A shape solidified out of the darkness, staggering towards them.
“Rhamel,” laughed Khalaxis, “you whoreson! You had me worried for a moment there.”
“Fine, brother,” replied Rhamel, his voice strained. “I don’t die easily.”
Khalaxis laughed and slapped his blood-brother on the shoulder, knocking him forward a step.
“Are you well, warrior brother?” asked Marduk, eyes narrowing.
“I will be fine, First Acolyte,” Rhamel replied fiercely.
“Remove your helmet, warrior of Lorgar,” commanded Marduk.
Rhamel pulled his helmet clear, standing to attention before the First Acolyte. The flesh of his broad, ritually scarred face was pale and waxy, and deep rings circled eyes that glinted with a feverish light. A scabbed wound was located on his neck, and the skin around the puncture was tinged vaguely blue.
“You are… unwell?” asked Marduk. “Poison?”
“Ovipositor impregnation,” intoned Darioq-Grendh’al.
“What is the machine speaking of?” asked Khalaxis.
“I don’t know,” replied Marduk.
“Source: Magos Biologis Atticus Fane, Lectures of Xenos Bioligae, 872.M40, Consultation of Nicae, Tenebria, Q.389.V.IX. Ref.MBim274.ch.impttck. The xenos subject species, genus Corporaptor, observed implanting gene-template into body of host,” said Darioq-Grendh’al. “Override of genetic coding documented. Bio-gene-splicing observed. Conclusion: Corporaptor Hominis overrides genetic makeup of host species, dominating upper cerebral cortex functions. Speculation: Corporaptor Hominis a vanguard species, locating and suppressing indigenous populations. Genetic corruption of local species suspected as a method of drawing Hive Fleet to suitable prey-worlds.”
The three Word Bearers looked blankly at the corrupted magos.
“Potential reversal of implanted host species’ gene-corruption: nil,” concluded Darioq-Grendh’al.
“Gene-corruption,” murmured Marduk.
“The machine babbles nonsense,” growled Khalaxis.
“Speak more clearly, Darioq-Drak’shal,” said Marduk, “perhaps in words that we might understand.”
“It is believed that the genestealers infiltrate potential prey-worlds for the tyranid xenos species to feed upon,” intoned the magos. “They infect the populace, and some believe that the collective control they exert over those bearing their genetic coding acts as a psychic beacon, drawing the organic Hive Fleets to those worlds where the beacon burns strongest.”
“And you say this… implant attack that Rhamel has suffered is altering his genetic coding?” asked Marduk.
“That is correct, master.”
“The bodies of the warriors of Lorgar are sacred temples, for in them we bear the mark of Lorgar. From his genome were we created,” said Marduk, “and such a… corrupti
on is an abomination.”
The First Acolyte looked at Rhamel, who grimaced as another wave of pain shot through him.
“You understand what must be done, Brother Rhamel,” said Marduk. It was a statement, not a question.
“I understand, my lord,” said Rhamel through gritted teeth, and the warrior dropped to his knees before the First Acolyte.
“What if the machine is wrong?” asked Khalaxis. “Could not the chirurgeons on the Infidus Diabolus reverse this corruption?”
“The machine is not wrong, brother,” said Rhamel. “I can feel it working within me, changing me. Let me pass with honour, my brother.”
The warrior closed his eyes tightly against the pain.
“I would ask that you do it, Khalaxis,” he hissed, pleadingly. “Do this for me, my brother. Please.”
Khalaxis looked at Marduk, and the First Acolyte nodded his head grimly.
“It is only fitting,” said the First Acolyte.
“As you wish, my brother,” said Khalaxis, moving in front of the kneeling warrior.
Marduk passed the champion of the almost obliterated 17th coterie his bolt pistol, and the taller warrior took it in his hands with great reverence. Then he raised the bolt pistol and placed it against Rhamel’s forehead.
“Into the darkness he strode,” quoted Marduk, from the Trials of the Covenant, “into the flames of hell, with his head held high, and he smiled.”
“Be at peace,” said Khalaxis.
Rhamel smiled, looking up at Khalaxis with eyes shining with belief. “I’ll see you on the other side, my brother,” he said.
Then the bolt pistol bucked in Khalaxis’s hand, and the back of Rhamel’s head was obliterated, exploding outwards in a shower of gore.
Marduk dipped a finger in the blood and drew an eight-pointed star on Rhamel’s forehead, the hole of the entry wound at its centre.
“What was that all about?” Burias asked in a low voice as they climbed into the submersible, eyeing the brooding Khalaxis.
“Nothing,” said Marduk. “A brave warrior is dead. He will be mourned.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple Page 22