Word Bearers

by Anthony Reynolds

  In response, the corrupted magos’s four servo arms began to reform, the metal/flesh of his articulated limbs running like molten wax as they remoulded themselves. Oily, black blood dripped from the servo-arms as their skin split, but the magos seemed unaffected, continuing to stride with slow determination towards the enemy. The protective bubble of his refractor field flashed again as more fire was directed towards him.

  Mechadendrites attached themselves to the gun-forms manifesting on the magos’s four servo-arms, bulging and changing shape to become energy cables and power conduits. Gone were the grasping power clamps and las-cutters as four deadly weapons replaced them, their power drawn from the warp and the magos’s own potent internal powerplant.

  Darioq-Grendh’al began to fire, his servo-arms blasting in diagonal pairs, first one pair then the other. They fired blinding gouts of hellish energy drawn directly from the warp, and spitting red ichor dripped from the infernal barrels of his newly formed weapons, hissing and smoking as they struck the deck.

  ‘Somehow I think it might be the magos that will be protecting us,’ said Sabtec.

  ‘Come, little brother,’ growled the immense form of the Warmonger as he stalked by Sabtec, having slaughtered all the enemy within his grasp. ‘We must gain the palace walls. The cursed betrayer of the Crusade, the self proclaimed Emperor of Mankind, will fall this day.’

  Sabtec shook his head. With every passing century it seemed that the Warmonger’s grip on reality slipped further. Often in the midst of battle the ancient warrior believed he was refighting the battle for the False Emperor’s palace, ten thousand years ago. The Warmonger had been amongst those within the palace when the battle had commenced in earnest, the fools unaware that there was an enemy within.

  Sometimes Sabtec wished that he too could lose himself in the dreams and delusion of battles long past. Perhaps in them the outcome would be different, and the False Emperor thrown down. It would be the Legions loyal to the Emperor that were hunted to the galaxy’s fringes, and the Great Crusade would be re-launched, deviants and xenos exterminated in glorious warfare that would set the universe ablaze. All of humanity would be united behind the teachings of his master Lorgar, and a new era of unity and rapturous praise of the Gods of Chaos would emerge. All who spurned the teaching of the primarch of the XVII Legion would be sacrificed. There would be war, of course, but without war humanity would become weak.

  Sabtec bitterly dispelled such thoughts, and ordered his Coteries on, plunging deeper into the belly of the Sword of Truth.

  Hate-fuelled battle erupted all across the Sword of Truth. Resistance was heavy, and equal numbers of XVII Legion warrior brothers and White Consuls fell in the brutal, close-quarter fighting. Nowhere was the fighting more fierce than upon the corridors leading to the bridge. Here, the loyalist Astartes were dug in, determined to defend the bridge until the last. Through them marched Kol Badar’s Anointed, carving a bloody path for their Dark Apostle.

  Wrenching his unholy crozius arcanum from the shattered skull of a White Consuls Scout, Marduk urged his brethren on with roared quotations from the Book of Lorgar.

  ‘We have reports that the Corruptus Maligniatus is advancing into close range,’ said Kol Badar, speaking of the Dark Apostle Ankh-Heloth’s personal warship. Marduk alone heard his voice across the closed channel.

  The Dark Apostle activated his holy weapon, and the blood and brain matter that had gathered upon its spikes was burned off by the surge of power.

  Was this how it was to end then? Had Ekodas chosen to dispose of him and his Host while they were aboard the enemy battle-barge, ensuring that the Nexus Arrangement remained unharmed, safely ensconced aboard the Infidus Diabolus?

  ‘Does she target the Sword of Truth?’ he said in reply, also using the closed channel.

  ‘Negative,’ reported Kol Badar. ‘The Corruptus Maligniatus is opening her Dreadclaw tubes. Assault pods are being launched.’

  ‘Where?’ snarled Marduk.

  ‘They are targeting the corridors higher up the command spire,’ said Kol Badar.

  ‘The bastard is seeking to take the bridge from under our nose,’ said Marduk. ‘We draw the ship’s defenders, and he takes the glory of claiming the ship.’

  ‘Your orders?’ asked Kol Badar.

  ‘We advance on the bridge, double speed.’

  You will not steal my glory, Ankh-Heloth, he thought.

  ‘It shall be so,’ intoned the Coryphaus.

  ‘Come, sorcerer,’ said Marduk.

  The Black Legion sorcerer, Inshabael Kharesh, looked up from where he was kneeling over a fallen enemy. He had his hands clasped around the Space Marine’s head. The sorcerer released the warrior, his hands still smoking with infernal power, and the Space Marine fell face first to the floor, dead, his liquefied brain oozing from his nose and ears.

  Marduk had wanted the sorcerer to stay aboard the Infidus Diabolus, yet he had little real power over him, and when he had expressed his desire to accompany the strike force he had agreed, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

  The sorcerer rose with a cynical smile on his lips.

  ‘Your wish, Dark Apostle,’ said the Black Legion sorcerer, his tone mocking.

  Remembering Erebus’s words to ensure no harm befell the sorcerer, Marduk swung away, his First Acolyte at his side.

  He would take his anger out on the Space Marine captain.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Kol Badar snarled as the blast of a combat shotgun fired at close range struck him, peppering his armour. The powerful kick of the weapon was unable to knock him back even a step, and he continued on through the hail of fire, combi-bolter roaring.

  Another White Consuls Scout moved up from behind the barricade, combat shotgun booming. They were lightly armoured, their bodies not yet fully ready to bond completely with power armour. Doubtless most had only begun their indoctrination a decade or so past. To Kol Badar they were children, inexperienced and worthy only of contempt. His combi-bolter barked, taking the Scout’s head off.

  From further up the heavily defended corridor – one of three that the Word Bearers were advancing up towards the bridge – a blinding lascannon beam struck, punching a cauterised hole straight through one of his Anointed brethren. Even mighty Terminator armour afforded little protection against such a weapon.

  Waves of bolter fire struck the advancing Terminators, and though few of his warriors fell to the unrelenting swathe of fire, it was slowing their progress. The enemy fell back before them, taking cover behind barricades that rose from the corridor floor. As the Word Bearers advanced, the barriers retracted, denying the XVII Legion their cover. Kol Badar cared not. The thick ceramite and adamantium plating of the Anointed’s Terminator armour could withstand easily as much incoming fire as the barricades themselves.

  Behind the enemy squads up ahead, towards the four-way junction roughly forty metres in front of the advancing Terminators, Kol Badar could see a White Consuls Techmarine at work, setting up a series of Tarantula sentry guns.

  A stabbing lascannon beam struck down one of his warriors, and another lost an arm to a plasma gun. Kol Badar snarled in frustration. A dozen target markers were blinking red before his eyes as the head-up targeting display of his quad-tusked helmet identified threats, and he selected the lascannon-wielding enemy Space Marine with a blink.

  ‘Suppressing fire,’ ordered the Coryphaus, allocating the target to one of his Anointed squads.

  ‘Target confirmed,’ came the growled reply from the squad’s champion.

  A second later a Reaper autocannon began to scream, the heavy underslung cannon swinging towards the allocated target. The twin barrels of the devastating weapon spat a torrent of high-calibre fire towards the enemy squad, and the deck floor around the Terminator was showered with countless hundreds of spent shell casings in seconds.

  A grenade rolled to Kol Badar’s feet but he ignored it and continued his advance. It detonated in a blinding fireball, spraying the area with super-heated
shrapnel. He marched on through the fiery conflagration without concern, ignoring the fact that his armour was now alight and riddled with debris. He didn’t even feel the heat of the blaze through the thick insulated layers of his exo-armour.

  Emerging from the flames, he gunned down two Scouts as they ducked back to the next barricade before switching his attention as his auto-senses flashed him a warning. He turned to see a combat squad of power-armoured Astartes advancing up to flank him, using a dimly-lit side-passage filled with cables and pipes. The two enemies in the lead both carried melta guns, potent weapons easily capable of liquefying even Terminator armour. Kol Badar activated the flame unit of his combi-bolter, sending burning promethium down the corridor to meet them. The rolling fire filled the narrow service tunnel, engulfing the enemy Space Marines. The Coryphaus pumped bolts through the inferno. His targeting array revealed that the flamer had only incapacitated two of his enemies.

  With a clipped order to his Anointed to advance, Kol Badar stomped into the service tunnel and unleashed another burst from his flamer. He came upon the first White Consul within the blaze. The Space Marine’s armour was blackened and smoking. Kol Badar’s crackling power talons clenched into a fist and he smashed the warrior backwards, crumpling his thick power-armoured chestplate like foil.

  A melta gun seared a glancing blow across his shoulder, making Kol Badar hiss in sudden pain, and he launched himself forward as the enemy squad frantically back-pedalled. His combi-bolter created gaping craters in the armour of two of the White Consuls, not penetrating but knocking them off-balance, and he grabbed the arm of one of them as the melta gun was turned again in his direction.

  With a sharp twist, Kol Badar ripped the White Consul’s arm off at the shoulder. He kicked the warrior square in the face, shattering the front of his helmet before planting a fatal bolt through the ruptured rebreather grille.

  A chainsword hit him on the arm, its teeth screaming as they sought to shear through his thick armour amid a spray of ceramite chips. Kol Badar backhanded the warrior into the wall and gunned down the last White Consul in the corridor.

  Angry at having been slowed, Kol Badar turned around awkwardly, snarling in frustration as his massive shoulder plates ground against the service tunnel walls. He stormed back out into the main thoroughfare, crushing the corpses of his bested enemies beneath his tread.

  The Tarantula sentry guns had been deployed and were now online, and the White Consuls were falling back towards the bridge under the cover of the automated turrets. They fired at an incredible rate before falling silent momentarily, turning with mechanised precision to pick a new target as one fell and they unleashed their fury once more. Huge drums of ammunition spooled, and smoke rose from the spinning barrels of the guns as they raked the Terminators of the Anointed with heavy weapon fire.

  One of the turrets was destroyed as Reaper autocannon fire shredded its armour and ignited its ammunition store, sending it catapulting backwards as it exploded. The Anointed’s advance ground to a halt as the White Consuls, having taken up new positions further up the corridor, just outside the armoured entrance to the bridge, began to add their weight of fire to those of the remaining sentry guns. The corridor was filled with tracer fire, gouts of plasma and the contrails of missiles that screamed down its length to explode amongst the warrior brothers of the XVII Legion, and Kol Badar ground his teeth in frustration.

  ‘We are too slow,’ came Marduk’s unnecessary assessment from further back, conveyed in Kol Badar’s earpiece via vox-link. His talons clenched in anger at the implicit rebuke in the Dark Apostle’s voice. ‘I will not let Ankh-Heloth take the bridge before us.’

  ‘I am well aware of the situation,’ snarled Kol Badar as a line of assault cannon fire stitched across his breastplate.

  A wealth of information bombarded the Coryphaus, scrolling down his irises as reports from elsewhere within the Sword of Truth flooded in. He expertly sent his orders through to all the champions serving under him, coordinating their efforts to achieve the swift control of the enemy vessel, while still advancing and engaging the enemy. His ability to maintain a strategic overview and continue directing the elements of the Host even when engaged in the fiercest conflict was part of what made him such an effective Coryphaus. From the data updates and visual feeds he was receiving from the other members of the Anointed, he could see that the advance up the other corridors too had stalled.

  Another Tarantula sentry gun was silenced, and Kol Badar once again began to stride forward, ordering his Anointed on. A missile spiralled past his shoulder, exploding just metres behind him but he ignored it, pumping bolt shells towards the dug-in White Consuls up ahead. The twin-linked assault cannons of a spider-legged turret ripped across the Anointed, felling one of them and forcing another to his knees, but the remainder came on, combi-bolters bucking in their hands.

  The turret began to walk backwards, its movements stilted and jerky, and Kol Badar knew that it was being remotely operated by the White Consuls Techmarine, who was undoubtedly back with his brethren at the bridge doors. The Tarantula turned and unleashed its cannons into one Anointed brethren who was within metres of it now, the powerful weapon tearing his armour apart at such close range.

  Still, the Terminator-armoured cult-warrior had not died purposelessly, and Kol Badar broke into a heavy run as the turret spun towards another warrior of the Anointed bearing down on it, power axe crackling with energy.

  Kol Badar reached the turret as its smoking assault cannons began firing once again, and he smashed it backwards with a sweep of his talons, knocking the field cannon off its mechanised feet. The turret weighed well over a tonne, yet Kol Badar tossed it aside as if it were nothing, his prodigious strength augmented by the thick servo-bundles and hydraulic amplifiers of his Terminator suit.

  Thirty metres ahead he saw the heavy blast-doors leading to the bridge, and bellowed his orders as he began striding through the enemy fire towards them. Missiles belched from behind barricades, and the intensity of the incoming bolter fire was considerable, even to his heavily armoured brethren. Taking the bridge was going to be costly.

  In addition to the enemy foot troops, there was a pair of vehicles parked in front of the thick blast-doors. He knew that service elevators ran from this wide corridor down through the ship. Clearly, these vehicles been raised from the ship’s armoury depot in the lower decks to guard the wide corridor’s approach.

  Kol Badar recognised them as Razorbacks, Rhino APC variants that had come into production in the millennia since the end of the Great War. Atop the boxy white Rhino chassis, replete with blue eagle-head Chapter designs and campaign markers, were twin-linked heavy-bolter turrets. They began to roar, adding to the heavy weight of fire directed towards the Anointed.

  ‘Burias,’ Kol Badar growled into his vox-comm. ‘I am target-marking a location. I want you there now.’

  No reply was forthcoming, but that did not concern the Coryphaus. He could see from his trackers that Burias and his possessed kindred were responding to his order, and the Icon Bearer clearly did not wish to risk giving away his position by sending a vox response.

  Kol Badar fired towards one of the enemy squads, his shots blowing chunks out of the barricades, forcing them to duck. A red target-laser appeared on his chest plate and he saw the White Consuls Techmarine with his ornate bolter a fraction of a second before he fired. Kol Badar snarled as he was knocked back a step, warning signals announcing a breach in his exo-skeleton’s integrity. The Techmarine was using non-standard anti-armour shells, their explosive tips replaced with melta-charges.

  He fired in return, grimacing in pain, but his shots went wide, missing their target.

  ‘Anytime, Burias…’

  In the wake of the Anointed vanguard, Marduk moved up more cautiously. Ducking behind cover, he slammed a fresh sickle clip into his Mars-pattern bolt pistol. The White Consuls had wrapped around behind the advancing strike force, threatening them from the rear as they plunged deeper i
nto the battle-barge. A sniper round impacted with the wall scant centimetres from his head, gouging a heart-sized crater out of the smooth plascrete surface.

  ‘Get down, you fool,’ he snapped at the Black Legion sorcerer accompanying him.

  Inshabael Kharesh strolled calmly through the mayhem. Trailing white smoke, a missile screamed towards the sorcerer but he merely flicked a hand dismissively as it neared him and it was deflected into the ceiling.

  Marduk scowled and broke cover, snapping off a shot and taking down a White Consul who was dashing towards a better firing position.

  The Coteries accompanying Marduk fell in around him, bolters roaring as they kept the White Consuls dogging their progress at bay.

  Behind them a combat squad with a pair of heavy bolters hustled into position under the covering fire of their brethren, falling in behind a barricade to bring the heavy weapons to bear up the corridor.

  Inshabael Kharesh turned towards them, mouthing his infernal magicks, and Marduk saw his eyes flickering with violet electricity. The Dark Apostle could feel the power growing within the sorcerer, the sensation tingling at the base of his neck. The sorcerer continued mouthing his incantation, flexing the fingers of his hands. Marduk shook his head, but then Kharesh took a step forwards, bracing his legs as the power surging within him was unleashed.

  It leapt from his fingertips in a crackling violet arc that struck one of the distant heavy bolter-armed Space Marines as he readied his weapon, cooking his flesh within his power armour. More arcs leapt from the White Consul’s convulsing form to strike his companions, and Kharesh sent a further purple lightning bolt slamming into them as he thrust his other hand towards them, lifting one of them off his feet and slamming him back against the wall behind. The sorcerer hurled three more bolts into the enemy, relishing their pain as they collapsed to the ground, twitching and jerking as the last vestiges of warp energy sparked across their bodies. The sorcerer then turned away, flashing Marduk an arrogant glance.