‘You will extend him all the courtesies that such an esteemed envoy demands in the coming crusade,’ Lord Erebus had said. ‘He is the emissary of the Warmaster, and though Abaddon is but a pale shadow of Horus, we must show the requisite respect. This sorcerer could be a great ally for the XVII Legion. See that he is treated with courtesy.’
‘It will be as the Council demands, my lord,’ Marduk had replied, bowing.
‘The… artefact is ready to be tested upon the warriors of the false Emperor?’
‘It is, my lord.’
‘Do not fail me, Marduk. Should this crusade falter I will be most displeased,’ said Erebus, his voice soft, yet carrying a potent weight of menace.
The sorcerer nodded his head in respect to Marduk, dipping his staff, which bore the unblinking eye of Horus, low to the ground.
‘Welcome, Inshabael,’ said Marduk smoothly. ‘I am honoured that you will be joining us for this crusade. It is always good to fight alongside our brothers of the Black Legion, and I am sure that your wise council will be invaluable in the coming days of blood.’
‘I extend my gratitude to you for your kind words, Dark Apostle Marduk,’ replied the sorcerer, his Cthonian accent harsh. ‘The Warmaster is keenly interested in your… xenos curio.’
Marduk bowed his head, a pale smile on his lips. Abaddon had clearly sent the sorcerer to watch over the Word Bearers, but Marduk did not allow his anger to be reflected on his face.
The sorcerer’s eyes drifted skywards, towards where the Infidus Diabolus hung in low orbit, and Marduk followed his gaze. The battleship was but one of many there, hovering motionless in the burning skies of the daemon world. There were thirteen battleships in all, and again Marduk felt his breath stolen by their awesome sight.
Thirteen battleships of the Word Bearers: five full Hosts, each led by a Dark Apostle.
The Thunderhawks and Stormbirds of the other Hosts were already flocking skywards, each one filled with bloodthirsty, zealous warriors. Heavier shuttles rose ponderously towards the waiting battleships, battle tanks and screaming daemon engines looked within their holds or hanging beneath them from metre-thick cables and locking clamps.
Immense transports lifted from the surface of Sicarus, emerging from beneath the parade grounds around the basilica, which slid aside to reveal gaping, subterranean crypt-holds below. The giant tubular vessels were powered by roaring engines that scorched the buildings below them as they rose into the air, defying the powers of gravity that strained to pull them back to earth. Kathartes swirled around the behemoths, filling the air with their piercing screams, for the daemons knew what was held within, and were hungry for them to be awoken. God-machines worshipped as physical representations of the powers that be, the titans of the dark Mechanicus rose towards the battleships, and Marduk relished the time that would soon come when the demi-legion of immeasurably destructive war machines would be unleashed. Long had it been since he had marched to war with the immense forms of titans striding behind him, each step covering fifty metres of ground, and their weapons laying waste to entire Imperial cities.
‘An impressive sight,’ said the sorcerer.
‘Indeed,’ agreed Marduk, a satisfied smile on his face. ‘Once more the Imperium will tremble.’
The Dark Apostle lifted his skull-faced helmet from under his arm and pulled it over his head. It connected with a hiss, and he breathed deeply of the acrid, recycled air.
‘The Black Legion are keeping their eye on us?’ growled Kol Badar in a low voice across a closed circuit vox that none bar Marduk could hear.
‘Something like that,’ said Marduk, replying across the closed circuit. He glanced towards the hulking Coryphaus.
‘Don’t think for a moment that I don’t know what you tried to do, Kol Badar: your little attempt to usurp me,’ said Marduk mildly, his voice oozing menace.
The Coryphaus stiffened, but made no response.
‘I am your Dark Apostle, with the full backing and confidence of the Council,’ continued Marduk calmly. ‘I will no longer tolerate or indulge any insubordination. I will warn you only once.’
Then he turned to his comrades and broke off the closed communications.
‘Come, my brothers,’ he said, his voice booming. ‘It is time.’
‘We go to war?’ inquired the Warmonger, its voice booming, sepulchral and eager.
‘To war,’ confirmed Marduk.
EPILOGUE
Marduk stood with his arms folded across his chest as he watched Darioq-Grendh’al at work.
A series of dark metal rings, each as tall as a man and inscribed with Chaotic runes of power, were aligned above a pentangle of blood, held in mid-air by the servo-arms of the magos. There were three rings in total, each fractionally smaller than the last, and they were aligned to form a single, large circle. Mechadendrite tentacles steadied the rings, holding them motionless with snapping, barbed claws and daemonic mouths. Another tentacle, black and smooth, emerged from within the ex-priest of the Machine-God’s body, squirming from a bloody rent that opened up on his metal chest, reaching towards a control column that rose beside the magos.
A blinking eye appeared at the tip of the tentacle, and it peered down at the controls. Then the eye melted back into the fleshy tip of the tentacle, and it keyed in a sequence of buttons on the console.
A red light rose from the centre of the pentangle, and a similar light stabbed down from the ceiling above, where a similar daemonic symbol had been daubed. The two beams of light met, passing through angular holes within the sides of the dark metal rings, and Darioq-Grendh’al released his grip on them.
Marduk half-expected the metal rings to fall to the ground, but they hung in place, perfectly motionless as the magos stepped away. A pair of black-robed chirumeks, their wasted flesh augmented with mechanics, stepped forwards and presented the magos with a featureless stasis box. Mechadendrites stabbed a series of buttons, and the lid of the stasis box slid aside, smoke rising from within.
Then, with delicate care, the magos brought forth a perfect, silver sphere from within the box. The chirumeks scurried back into the darkness, and Darioq-Grendh’al moved back towards the rings hanging suspended in mid-air.
The magos extended his mechadendrites, reaching towards the joined beams of red light, and placed the silver sphere in their centre, where they had joined. It hung there, caught between the two beams, and Darioq-Grendh’al retreated once more.
The dark metal rings began to rotate, three rings moving in separate arcs that rolled around one another, moving smoothly and with increasing speed. The sound of air being displaced by the spinning rings got louder as they rotated faster, and soon the sound became a solid hum. The red light of the twin beams became diffuse, filling the sphere created by the rotating rings as they spun ever faster.
Marduk’s eyes were locked on the silver sphere, the Nexus Arrangement that hung motionless in the centre of the rapidly spinning rings. At first nothing happened, but then glowing green, xenos hieroglyphs appeared across the perfect silver sphere. They glowed with intense light, and the sphere appeared to melt, its faultless, seamless exterior becoming seven rings that began to rotate around a centre of glowing green light.
The rings began to turn, mirroring the movements of the larger rings constructed by Darioq-Grendh’al, though their movements were slower.
Turning a dial, the red beams of light began to intensify and thicken, turning the green light at the centre of the xenos sphere a daemonic, bruised purple colour.
‘It works,’ said Marduk, with a grin. It was his to command.
Green lightning flickered across the tip of the black pyramid as the prison of the ancient being known as the Undying One was shattered. A billowing cloud of dust rose from the ground as the immense pyramid began to rise, green hieroglyphs glowing into life upon its sides. Larger than any battleship, it lifted towards the dark sky, powered by engines far beyond human comprehension, for it was created by beings that had been in exist
ence before the stars had been formed.
The majority of its bulk had been hidden beneath the rock, and it shattered the earth as it rose to the heavens, casting a shadow over the continent below. It rose higher into the air, green lightning still crackling across its sheer sides.
Directed by the Undying One’s immortal will, it turned towards the angry red blemish that scarred the night sky, towards the Eye of Terror, towards the one that had released it from its imprisonment.
PROLOGUE
The animal stink of humanity rose up the bladed sides of the Basilica of the Word, borne on hot updrafts, mingling with the heavy scent of incense and the metallic bite of freshly spilt blood. Behind it, the electric tang of Chaos hung in the air.
A balcony jutted from one of the basilica’s great spires, five kilometres above the heaving masses below. The surface of the daemon world Sicarus was a honeycomb of mausoleums and temples, though from this height, it was partially obscured by blood-red clouds that whipped around the spires. Two holy warriors stood side by side upon the balcony, gazing across the skyline of their adopted home world.
Immense towers and shrines strained towards the burning heavens as far as the eye could see, and ten thousand mournful corpse-bells tolled. Moans of pain and rapture rose from the millions of proselytes in the streets, the morbid sound carried on rising thermals exhaled from the subterranean blood-furnaces and daemonic forges.
Skinless daemons circled overhead. Others stripped the flesh from the tens of thousands of living sacrifices impaled on the flanks of the basilica’s spires.
The flayed skin curtain behind the pair of holy warriors rippled.
‘Let them expose themselves,’ said Erebus, First Chaplain of the Word Bearers. His voice was low and dangerous. ‘Find out how deep the river of their corruption runs.’
The holy demagogue’s head was shaved and oiled. The skin across his scalp was inscribed with intricate cuneiform, his flesh forming a living Book of Lorgar. Erebus’s eyes were cold and dead, giving away nothing. In their reflective darkness Marduk saw himself, the lurid flames of the æther burning behind him.
‘As you wish, my lord,’ said Marduk.
‘They will seek to deceive and to confuse. They will undermine you, and try to sway your loyalty and the loyalty of your captains. Trust only your own council and judgement.’
‘I understand, my lord,’ said Marduk. ‘I shall not fail you.’
‘See that you do not.’
Erebus’s gaze remained fixed on a point beyond the horizon, and Marduk followed it.
Though there was nothing to be seen bar the endless landscape of spires, domed cathedrals and gehemehnet towers, Marduk knew where Erebus‘s thoughts lay.
It seemed an eternity had passed since blessed Lorgar had removed himself from his adoring Legion. It had been thousands of years since the golden-skinned daemon-primarch had isolated himself within the Templum Inficio, forbidding any to disturb his meditations. Great had been the lamentation within the Hosts when the holy daemon-primarch had made his will known, for never had they been without the glorified one, the Urizen as he was known amongst the warrior brethren. Surrounded by a desert of bones, the Templum Inficio had been constructed by eight million slave-adepts, all of whom had given their lives upon its completion, staining the temple stones with their blood. As the voices of the Legion rose as one in mourning, the great doors of the templum were sealed, never to be opened until Lorgar’s vigil was over.
Centuries rolled into millennia, yet every day hundreds of thousands of blood-candles were still lit in Lorgar’s name. His name was whispered on the tortured lips of ten million penitents praying for his return.
In his absence, the Council of Sicarus continued to guide the flock, ensuring that the Legion maintained its adherence to Lorgar’s teachings.
‘He will return to us, my lord?’ asked Marduk.
‘In his own time,’ assured Erebus. ‘Have faith, Apostle.’
Marduk touched the glyph of Lorgar branded on his forehead, murmuring a prayer. He lifted his gaze, squinting into the burning atmosphere and the glory of the raw immaterium.
Thirteen immense battleships hung in low orbit overhead, motionless and menacing; five complete Hosts, ready to embark upon a dark crusade against the hated Imperium. His ship, the Infidus Diabolus, was amongst the deadly shoal, her flanks bristling with cannons and launch bays, steeples and shrine towers rising above her armoured hull.
‘The crusade awaits you, Marduk,’ said Erebus. ‘May the blessing of Lorgar be upon you.’
‘And you, my master,’ said Marduk, bowing low. He turned and strode from the balcony, sweeping the flayed skin curtain aside.
Erebus watched him go then turned to face the distant horizon.
‘Come then, my brothers,’ he said. ‘Make your play against me.’
BOOK ONE: THE BOROS GATE
‘Five there shall be, by blood, sin and oath, five cardinals Colchis born, united in bonds of Brotherhood. Hearken! Rejoice! Harbingers of darkness they, augurs of the fall. And lo! With fury of hellfire, truth, and orb of ancient death, the gate shall be claimed. And so it shall come to pass; the beginning of the End. Glory be!’
–Translation from the Rubric Apocalyptica
CHAPTER ONE
Fanged mouths of a dozen grotesque misericords exhaled incense, filling the dimly lit shuttle interior. Seated shoulder to shoulder, their genetically enhanced bodies encased in thick plate the colour of congealed blood, the warriors of the Host sat in meditative silence, breathing the heavy smoke.
Hunched figures shuffled up the aisles, daubing the warriors’ armour with sacred unguents. Their features were hidden beneath deep cowls. They hissed devotional prayers and blessings as they went about their work.
Kol Badar waved them away with a snarl, sending them scurrying.
Heavily scarred from thousands of years of bitter warfare, his face was lit from below by the ruby-red internal glow of his ancient Terminator armour. His head was dwarfed by the immensity of the armoured suit within which he was permanently sealed. Segmented cabling pierced the necrotised flesh at the base of his neck and at his temples.
‘Initialising docking sequence,’ croaked a mechanised voice. Kol Badar was jolted as the shuttle’s retro-thrusters kicked in.
Uncoupling himself from the bracing restraints, Kol Badar rose and stalked down the darkened aisles of the Stormbird. Each heavy metallic step was accompanied by the whir of servo-motors and the hiss of venting steam. Seven holy warriors of the cult of the Anointed, the warrior elite of the Host, had been chosen to accompany the Dark Apostle and his entourage, and they bowed their heads low in respect as Kol Badar passed them.
The Anointed were the blood-soaked veterans of a thousand wars. Proud and zealous, each was a holy champion of Lorgar in his own right. They wore ancient suits of Terminator armour, their heavy gauge ceramite plates inscribed with scripture and hung with fetishes and icons. This armour had been in the service of the Legion since before the fall of Horus, lovingly maintained and repaired over the long millennia by the Legion’s chirumeks.
Stabilising jets roared, and the Stormbird shuddered as docking maglocks clamped into place. Burning red blister lights flashed, and the scream of the engines began to subside. Reams of data scrolled before Kol Badar’s eyes. He reviewed the information feed swiftly before blinking it away.
‘Honour guard, at the ready.’
As one the Anointed brethren released their restraints and stood to attention as the shuttle lowered to the deck of the immense battleship. Mechanical clicks and whines accompanied final diagnostic tests. Weapons were checked and loaded.
The pneumatic stabilisers of the shuttle settled. With a hiss of equalising pressure and a burst of super-heated steam, the assault ramp of the shuttle unfolded and slammed down on the deck. Kol Badar led the Anointed down the ramp. Tracking for targets, they stepped aboard the Crucius Maledictus.
An Infernus-class battleship, one of the largest
vessels to have fought in the Great Crusade, the Crucius Maledictus was the flagship of the Dark Apostle Ekodas. The battleship had suffered calamitous damage fighting against the fleets of the Khan in the last days before Horus’s fall, but had managed to limp to the safety of the Maelstrom. Extensively repaired, modified and re-armed upon the daemonic forge-world of Ghalmek, it now ranked amongst the most heavily armed and armoured battleships in the Word Bearers arsenal, rivalling even Kor Phaeron’s Infidus Imperator.
The docking bay of the Crucius Maledictus was immense, with curved arches rising a hundred metres overhead. Ancient banners and kill-pennants hung down the length of giant pillars, recounting the victories of the 7th Company Host. Two other assault shuttles had already docked. They seemed small and insignificant within the vastness of the docking bay, which was far bigger than any aboard the Infidus Diabolus. Kol Badar merely scowled, unimpressed, and glared at the serried ranks of Astartes waiting for them.
There were more than two thousand Word Bearers, standing motionless, bolters clasped across deep red chest plates. The 7th was one of the largest and most decorated Hosts in the Word Bearers Legion, and their Dark Apostle Ekodas was counted as close confidant of the Keeper of the Faith, Kor Phaeron. Ten ranks deep on either side, the warrior brothers of the 7th formed a grand corridor leading towards the titanic blastdoors at the far end of the docking bay, four hundred metres away. A blood-red carpet had been rolled out between them along its length.
There was no welcoming party, no fanfare to honour them as they came aboard the Crucius Maledictus. Annoyed, Kol Badar barked an order to his brethren. The Anointed fell into line at the foot of the Stormbird’s assault ramp, four warriors to a side. The sound of them slamming their fists against their chests echoed sharply. Kol Badar turned his back on the warriors of the 7th to wait for Marduk, his Dark Apostle and master, to emerge from the Stormbird.
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