Word Bearers

by Anthony Reynolds

  Varnus stepped around the corner and moved forwards cautiously, the focused beam from his helmet piercing the dark corners that the weak illumination of the glow globes failed to light. Rodents scurried away from the brightness. The stench was overpowering.

  ‘Who in the Emperor’s name would want to hide out here?’ remarked one of his team, swearing colourfully.

  ‘Those who don’t want to be disturbed,’ said Varnus sharply. ‘And cut the chatter, Landers. I’m sick of your whine.’ The enforcer muttered something under his breath, and Varnus resisted the urge to turn on the big man. Focus, he told himself, and stepped towards the closer of the two doors. He heard the sound of muffled voices, a shout. He swore.

  Varnus slammed his heavy boot into the door, and it collapsed inwards, its hinges long corroded. A pair of men were raising a heavy metal hatch in the floor of the room. One, his eyes filled with fear, dropped down into the darkness of the bolt-hole. The other raised an autopistol, face twisted in hatred, and raking fire spat from the end of the stub-nosed weapon. Varnus’s shotgun barked, even as the bullets from the pistol ripped across his chest, and the man’s head exploded in a splatter of gore.

  Varnus fell back from the impact of the projectiles on his carapace armour. ‘Get the other one,’ he wheezed.

  ‘I can’t fit down there,’ remarked Landers, shrugging his shoulders. He nodded towards the smallest of the four enforcers, a grin on his face.

  ‘One of you damn well go! Now!’ roared Varnus, pulling himself to his feet. The slight enforcer swore, seeing the eyes of the whole team on him. He placed his shotgun on the floor of the room, drew and cocked his autopistol and dropped into the darkness of the bolt-hole. The sound of the man scrambling through a metal duct echoed loudly beneath them.

  Still wheezing, Varnus opened up his comm-channel.

  ‘They are running. Undisclosed bolt-holes. Orders?’

  Varnus pulled the bullets from his chest-plate as he waited for a response. He could feel the heat from the bullets through the leather of his gloves.

  ‘Captain?’ he said with some impatience. ‘Did you hear me? What are our orders?’

  There was a muffled grunt of pain from the bolt-hole, and then the sound of three gunshots. The enforcer reappeared a moment later. ‘Bastard stuck me,’ he said, his hand gripped around his left arm, blood seeping between his fingers.

  ‘Hold position. Awaiting new intel,’ came the captain’s terse response, finally.

  ‘Hold position? They will have cleared out by the time we wait for new intel!’

  ‘Hold your position, lieutenant.’ The comm-bead clicked closed in his helmet.

  ‘Frek that,’ said Varnus. Yanking the last of the autopistol bullets from his chest plate, he threw them to the ground. ‘Right, let’s move.’

  ‘Lieutenant?’ questioned one of the enforcers.

  ‘The bastards are getting away. We close on the target position, now. If the Emperor wills it, we may yet salvage something from this mission. Move!’

  ‘That’s what the captain’s orders are, are they?’ asked Landers, disbelief clear on his face.

  Varnus turned quickly, stepping in close to the bigger man, and slammed a clenched fist into his face. Landers fell back, a cry more of shock than pain escaping his lips.

  ‘I am your lieutenant, damn you, you slimy arse licker, and you will do as I damn well say,’ snarled Varnus. ‘Now, all of you, let’s move out.’

  Leading the way, Varnus pushed on deeper into the stinking, crumbling complex. He heard the others falling in behind him, and heard Landers muttering to himself. He grinned. He had wanted to punch that man for months.

  The enforcers moved on, covering each other as they ghosted through the corridors and down corroded metal stairways. Varnus heard running footsteps ahead, and raised a hand, crouching low. He turned off the light on his helmet, the other enforcers following suit, and they plunged into dim, semi-light. A figure ran lightly around a corner, and Varnus reared up, slamming the butt of his shotgun into the figure’s head. There was a crunching sound, and the figure dropped. Clicking his light back on, he saw it was a woman, her hair clipped short. Her eyes were open and staring, and blood seeped from her head where Varnus had struck her. An autogun was clasped in her dead hands.

  ‘We are close,’ said Varnus.

  Carefully descending another flight of metal stairs, the enforcer team could see a flickering of orange light coming from below. The stink of promethium filled their nostrils.

  Reaching the landing below, the team was faced with a single, heavy door standing slightly ajar, its plasglass window smashed through. Flames could be seen on the other side.

  ‘Quickly,’ hissed Varnus, and the enforcer team entered the room. It was a large, square space, and one of the glow-globes in the ceiling exploded as flames touched it. Couches and chairs were ablaze, as was a low table covered in papers and documents. The walls were lined with bunks and desks, and a makeshift kitchen had been constructed in the eastern corner. The figure of a man, oblivious to the sudden appearance of the enforcers, was liberally upending the contents of a metal can across a table on the far side of the room.

  Varnus hissed, motioning for his team to lower their weapons. ‘Take him, no guns,’ he mouthed to Landers. The enforcer nodded, the confrontation of minutes earlier forgotten, and moved swiftly towards the figure. Feeling the presence behind him too late, the man turned just as Landers’s thick arms wrapped around his neck, locking him firmly. He was dragged back across the room, and slammed face first onto the floor, his arms held painfully behind his back. The man struggled in vain, and Landers dropped his knee into the man’s back, pinning him in place.

  Varnus ran across the room and picked up one of the sodden papers that covered the promethium doused table. It was a detailed schematic map. He swore as he saw what it detailed.

  ‘Get these damn flames out now! This whole place could go up at any second!’ Varnus hollered. He opened up his comm-channel. ‘Captain, this is Lieutenant Varnus. You need to get in here. Now,’ he said, moving back towards Landers and the captive.

  He knelt down beside the pinned captive and turned his face roughly towards him. The man’s features were twisted in hatred and pain.

  ‘What in the Emperor’s name were you planning here?’ Varnus said quietly.

  The captive spat, eyes blazing with fury.

  ‘What do you make of these, lieutenant? Gang markings? I don’t recognise them,’ said one of the enforcers.

  Varnus looked to where the man motioned with his head. A crude tattoo was visible where the captive’s dark brown overalls had been torn at his left shoulder. Ripping the heavy cloth fully away from the man’s body, he gazed upon the emblazoned design: a screaming, horned daemon head surrounded by flames.

  ‘I don’t recognise it either, but it looks like some kind of damn cult marking to me,’ said Varnus. He swore silently to himself.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Burias walked with a warrior’s grace as he stalked through the dark, musty smelling halls of the Infidus Diabolus, impatient for the slaughter that was soon to come. His armour was a deep, bruised red, edged in dull, brushed metal. It was an exhibit of exceptional craftsmanship, each heavy ceramite plate fitting perfectly over his powerful, enhanced body.

  He could not recall a time when his sacred armour had not been a part of him. He had laboured over every coiling engraving covering the auto-reductive armour plates, had painstakingly whittled the words of blessed Lorgar along the burnished reinforcement bands that circled his forearms, and had carved the words of the gods themselves around the rim of his heavy shoulder plates. The sacred Latros Sacrum, the symbol that represented the Word Bearers Legion was embossed on his left shoulder. A bronze, stylised representation of a roaring, horned daemon surrounded by flames, it represented all that the Legion and Burias stood for, all that they believed in and all that they killed for.

  He wore no helmet for the upcoming exhortation. His vicious
, deathly pale face was unmarked by scars, a rarity for a warrior who had fought in as many campaigns as he had, and it was framed by long, oiled black hair.

  With each step, the heavy butt of the icon that Burias held in his left hand slammed into the polished, black-veined, stone floor, the sharp sound echoing around him.

  The icon was a thick staff of spiked, black iron. It was almost three metres tall, taller even than him, and loops of heavily ornate bronze encircled its shaft. These loops were inscribed with litanies and epistles, sacred words of the Daemon Primarch Lorgar. It was topped with a glistening, black, eight-pointed star, the points of the symbol of Chaos barbed and sharp. In the centre of the star was a graven image of the sacred Latros Sacrum.

  Burias had received the honour of becoming icon-bearer with great pride, and he had the privilege of walking before Marduk, the First Acolyte, and Jarulek, the Dark Apostle, leading them to their positions in the ceremonies of worship and sacrifice. He had performed this sacred duty for many years, and the esteem he had earned from his warrior-brothers as a result was great.

  He paused before he began his ascent up a grand set of curving stairs. The staircase was wide enough for twenty Space Marines to walk side by side, and its curving balustrades were highly ornate and picked out in bronze, crafted by some unknown hand countless aeons past. Two intimidating statues glared at any wishing to climb the steps, monstrous, coiling daemons said to strike down those with unworthy hearts.

  Raising his head high, Burias began the long climb, his footfalls on the cold stone echoing up into the gloom of the arching ceiling hundreds of metres above. Ghostly chanting flowed down upon him, the sound of dozens of servitor eunuchs, forever ensconced in hidden pulpit-casings, intoning the canticles of blessed Lorgar in never-ending cycles.

  Reaching the top of the grand staircase, Burias continued on towards a pair of gigantic, arched doors on the opposite side of a long gallery. Huge, stone tablets lined the walls of the gallery, each more than twenty metres in height and covered in intricate, precisely carved script, just a part of the Book of Lorgar, said to have been carved by the Dark Apostle Jarulek.

  At the far end of the gallery, at either side of the great doors, stood a pair of warrior-brothers, the two chosen to act as the honour guard accompanying the First Acolyte to the exhortation. Each wore long robes of cream over their blood-red armour, and stood static in their positions, bolters held clasped across their chests. Tall curling horns extended from the helms of the warriors, and the pair made no reaction as Burias crossed the gallery to stand before the great doors.

  A partially hidden side door clicked open, and a shuffling, robed figure emerged. Bent almost double, the figure’s face was obscured beneath its hood, and it bore a brazier upon its back from which strong smelling incense smoke wafted in thick clouds. Sickly thin, grey-fleshed, shaking hands clasped a metal lidded bowl, and as the awkward figure hurried towards him, Burias raised his arms out to either side. The attendant lifted the lid on the bowl, revealing a stiff brush sitting in oil. Burias stood impassively as the shuffling figure daubed his armour with the sacred cleansing oils, stretching to reach his arms. Its duty done, the figure turned and retreated back within the sanctity of its den. Idly, Burias wondered for how many centuries the pathetic creature had performed this duty.

  He pushed such thoughts from his mind as he strode forwards and placed a hand upon one of the great doors. Perfectly weighted, it swung open noiselessly at his light touch. Without pause, Burias entered the sanctum of the First Acolyte, the door sliding shut behind him.

  The entrance room was sparsely decorated, with little ornamentation. Arched doorways led off to other parlours and rooms of worship, and on the other side of the large room hung a curtain of bone beads, leading to a smaller antechamber. Burias was always intrigued by the floor when he entered this room, and he stared down at it in awe. The entire floor space had been constructed in a clear, glass-like material, and beneath it was a gigantic stone-carved, eight-pointed star. Around the star, a red liquid writhed and boiled with a life of its own, and as he watched, faces and hands appeared within the viscous substance, clawing at the smooth glass beneath him. He grinned at the pained and angry expressions of the beings within. He imagined that they looked at him jealously, walking freely without containment as he was. Once, he had asked Marduk what they were. Are they daemons trapped within, he had questioned? Marduk had replied that they were, in a sense. He called them the Imaginos, and he claimed that they were but reflections that mirrored the inner daemons of those that looked upon them. A face manifested itself right beneath Burias’s feet, and ripped its smiling face open, revealing a snarling and spitting visage beneath. Burias laughed softly, and snarled back at the creature.

  ‘Is it time already, Burias?’ asked the powerful voice of Marduk, the First Acolyte, from behind the curtain.

  ‘It is, First Acolyte,’ Burias replied. He could just make out the shadowy form of his master behind the beaded curtain, a large, dark silhouette kneeling within the slightly raised small room beyond.

  ‘A shame. I was experiencing some most lucid dream visions. Most enlightening,’ said the voice. ‘Come closer, Burias.’

  Obeying his master’s order, he strode across the room. Up close, he could make out the details of the bone beads, seeing that they were tiny skulls. Were they real, shrunken with sorceries? he wondered, as he had done a million times before.

  ‘Surely the exhortation will be such that any regrets as to its timing will be soon forgotten,’ suggested Burias.

  ‘Sometimes I think you should lead the sermons, such a golden tongue you have,’ said Marduk. The shadow of the holy warrior rose to its feet and rolled its shoulders, loosening muscles that had been immobile for long hours of prayer and meditation. He angled his neck from side to side, producing cracking sounds, and turned around. With an imperious sweep of a gauntleted hand, the First Acolyte brushed the beaded skull curtain aside and stepped down into the room. Burias instantly lowered his gaze respectfully. Coiling smoke followed in Marduk’s wake, and Burias could taste the dry, acrid incense in the back of his throat.

  Eyes downcast, he saw that the Imaginos had fled. He could feel the closeness of the First Acolyte: the charged air, the electric taste of the gods that hung upon him. Truly, he was chosen of the gods, and Burias relished the sensation.

  ‘You can look up now, Burias, your reverential obeisance has been witnessed,’ said Marduk, a sarcastic tone tingeing his words.

  Burias raised his gaze to meet his master’s flinty, cold eyes. ‘Have I angered you, First Acolyte?’

  Marduk laughed, a harsh, barking sound.

  ‘Anger me? But you are always so careful with your displays of respect. How could you have possibly angered me, Burias?’ Marduk held Burias’s gaze, dark humour in his eyes. ‘No, you have not angered me, my friend,’ he said, turning away. ‘My mind is… occupied. The dream visions are coming to me more frequently since leaving the Maelstrom, the closer we draw to the planet of the great enemy.’

  ‘Your power grows, First Acolyte,’ said Burias, looking at Marduk’s strong profile, his skin so pale it was translucent.

  ‘And yours with it, my champion,’ Marduk growled.

  Burias grinned ferally. ‘That it does.’

  Marduk’s head was ritually shaved, except for a long, braided length of black hair that sprouted from his crown. A network of criss-crossing, blue veins pulsed beneath his flesh. Cables and pipes pushed through the skin at his temples, and his teeth had grown into sharp fangs over the centuries. He was truly a terrifying warrior to look upon, and his armour was bedecked with honorifics and artefacts of religious significance. Burnished metal talismans, tiny shrunken skulls and Chaos icons hung from chains on his ornate, deep red armour. A scrimshawed bone of the prophet Morglock was strapped to his thigh with padlocked chains, and extracts from the Book of Lorgar, scratched upon human flesh, hung from his shoulder pads.

  ‘And how is Drak’shal today?�
�� asked Marduk, looking deep into Burias’s lupine eyes.

  ‘Quiet. But I can feel he is… hungry.’

  Marduk laughed. ‘Drak’shal is always hungry. It is his nature. But I am glad he is not strong today; today is no time for him to come to the fore. Keep him in check. His time will come soon enough.’

  ‘I look forward to it. He so likes to kill.’

  ‘Yes, he does, and he does it very well. But come now, we must not keep the Dark Apostle waiting.’

  The pair left the sanctum, Burias leading the First Acolyte in silence, the icon held out before him, reverentially clasped in both hands. The honour guard fell into position a step behind. They walked through twisting corridors and up further flights of stairs until they came to a great, golden door, details picked out in relief. Once there, all four of the Word Bearers warriors dropped to one knee and bowed their heads. They waited in silence for several minutes before the doors before them were thrown open.

  ‘Arise,’ said a dangerously softly spoken voice.

  Raising his eyes, Burias looked upon Jarulek, the Dark Apostle of the Host. Bedecked in a black robe that covered much of his ancient, blood-red armour, he was neither particularly tall nor broad for one of the Legion. Outwardly, he projected none of the sense of brutal power that Kol Badar exuded, nor the potent vitality that Marduk possessed. Nor did warriors fear him for the lethal savagery that Burias knew lurked only barely beneath the surface of his own demeanour.