‘Cheap tricks,’ muttered First Acolyte Ashkanez.
Marduk grunted.
Turning, he saw the Anointed’s advance slowed by the weight of fire they were drawing, and he snarled in impatience.
‘Kol Badar,’ he growled, opening a vox-link to his Coryphaus.
‘I know,’ came the snarled reply before he could say any more.
Burias slithered along the vent, worming his way forward. His arms were by his sides and he squirmed through the tight confines by relaxing and flexing his genetically enhanced muscles. He came to a junction and turned to the right, continuing another hundred metres through the lightless pipe before coming to a halt. He could hear his kindred coming up behind him. The sound seemed deafeningly loud to his ears. Still, the enemy was unlikely to hear a thing over the gunfire.
Burias exhaled a long breath as he released the shackles that bound the ravaging daemon Drak’shal, and the change came over him. His modified power armour expanded as his musculature bulged and swelled, his arms thickening and his fingers fusing into broad talons. The air-recycling pipe groaned in protest as his body expanded, the metal wrenching out of shape. Curving horns extended up from his now bestial face, and drool ran from lips that were pulled back to expose a maw heavy with fangs and tusks.
He sniffed, hatred growing, as he tasted the unmistakeable scent of loyalist Astartes on the air. His talons extended and he punched them through the constricting embrace of the pipe. With a wrench, he tore the pipe apart and launched himself down onto the grilled sheeting below. He crashed down through the metal roofing as his brethren emerged behind him, dropping down into the midst of the enemy position.
Burias-Drak’shal landed on all fours atop the armoured hull of a Razorback, and he let out a blood-curdling roar, throwing his head back like an unfettered beast howling at the moon.
The White Consuls spun, turning their bolters towards this new threat without panic or fear, and bolts sliced through the air around Burias-Drak’shal. One took him in the side, gouging a deep wound in his daemonic flesh, but he ignored the injury. Bounding across the top of the armoured vehicle, talons ripping into its hull plating, he tore the twin-linked heavy bolter turret from its housing with a surge of warp-fuelled strength. He hurled the sparking turret aside and leapt from the tank.
He landed amongst the White Consuls, roaring his hatred, and bore one of them to the ground beneath his talons. His jaw distending unnaturally, Burias-Drak’shal clamped his teeth around the warrior’s helmet. With a wrench, he tore helmet and head from the warrior’s shoulders. Blood spurted like a fountain.
His possessed kindred dropped down among the enemy, their forms altering as they allowed the daemons lurking within them to surge to the fore, inviting them to sate their hatred upon the foe. Astartes were ripped apart, torn limb from limb by the brute force exhibited by these monsters.
One of the possessed was lifted into the air by the clamping jaws of the White Consuls Techmarine’s servo arm, kicking and screaming in rabid fury, before the Techmarine tore it in two with a burst of fire from his master-crafted bolter. Its lower body continued to kick as it dropped to the deck in a shower of blood, while its upper half was hurled away.
Marduk broke into a run as the weight of fire dropped. First Acolyte Ashkanez ran at his side, immense power maul clasped in both hands. The rest of the Coterie members accompanying the Dark Apostle were only a step behind, quickly overtaking the slower Anointed brethren. While Terminator armour turned an Astartes into a living tank, able to shrug off incoming fire and march staunchly on enemy positions, it slowed a warrior down considerably – an acceptable compromise in situations such as boarding actions and close-quarter firefights.
The possessed carved a bloody swathe through the White Consuls, and their roars and bellows echoed sharply up the corridor. Still, there were only a handful of the daemonically infused warriors, and the Consuls were reacting quickly to their presence, squads falling back into disciplined fire channels that hammered them with bolter fire. Another two possessed were torn to shreds by the concentrated weight of fire. Their forms mutated wildly as they perished, the daemons within seeking desperately to maintain control over their dying host-bodies.
Nevertheless, the possessed had done their job and cracked the enemy formation, allowing the Word Bearers to close the distance.
Marduk holstered his pistol and drew his chainsword. Barbed thorns set into the daemon weapon’s hilt pushed through the perforations drilled into the palm of his gauntlets, and a tingle ran though him as they pierced his flesh. His blood mingled with the daemon-blade, and he felt a surge of fury and power as he and the daemon Borhg’ash bound within the roaring blade became one. Borhg’ash’s anger and desire to feed flooded through him, and he revelled in the sensation, more powerful than any hyper-stimm or combat drug.
‘Death to the False Emperor!’ Marduk roared, and wielding the daemon weapon in one hand and his humming crozius in the other, he leapt a barricade, hurling himself amongst the White Consuls. His chainsword roared, carving power armour and flesh, and his blessed crozius was wreathed in dark energy as he laid about him with it.
Ashkanez was only a step behind, and a powerful blow of his power maul took a White Consul under the chin, lifting the Space Marine off his feet and sending him flying backwards. The weapon’s power source surged on impact with a sharp crack of discharging energy, splitting the warrior’s power armour and shattering his jaw.
A White Consul deflected Marduk’s next strike with his bolter, the teeth of his daemon-blade ripping chunks out of the gun’s casing. The Dark Apostle slammed his crozius into the warrior’s side, puncturing power armour and lungs with its spikes and hurling the Consul into the wall. Before he could finish the warrior, a bolt pistol wielded by another Consul boomed, the shot taking Marduk in his shoulder, spinning him half around. His own blood sprayed out around him for a moment before the potent hyper-coagulants of his bloodstream sealed the wound, and he growled in pain and outrage.
The bolt pistol was raised for another shot, but the White Consul’s arm was shattered by a heavy double-handed blow of Ashkanez’s power maul, splinters of broken bone gleaming brightly within the messy wreckage of power armour and flesh. The First Acolyte’s return blow crunched down upon the Consul’s white helmet, killing him in a splatter of gore.
‘Apostle!’ growled Ashkanez in warning, and Marduk turned, hissing at the pain in his shoulder, but managed to lift his crozius up to deflect a buzzing chainsword that was aimed towards his neck. He smashed his own chainblade up into his attacker’s groin, and blood sprayed as the hungry teeth of his daemon weapon ripped through power armour.
The White Consul fell to the deck, his plate armour covered in blood, and Marduk spun away from him, deflecting the thrust of a combat knife before stepping in close and ramming his elbow into the Consul’s face.
‘Guilliman’s weakness resides within you, brother,’ sneered Marduk. Still, the warrior was Astartes, even if he was descended from the False Emperor’s bastard lapdog primarch, and he recovered quickly, spitting teeth and blood from his mouth. With a roar he hurled himself at Marduk, lunging for the Dark Apostle’s neck with his combat knife.
Marduk battered him aside with his crozius and struck out with his chainblade in a blow intended to rip his enemy’s neck apart. The Astartes warrior felt Marduk’s intent a fraction of a second before the attack was launched, and lifted an arm into the path of the daemon weapon. The weapon screamed as it tore through ceramite and flesh, biting deep into bone. The White Consul grimaced in pain, but dragged the chainsword away from his neck and lashed out with his knife. Marduk threw his head back, avoiding the worst of the blow, though a deep slash was carved across his face just under his left eye.
‘Heathen filth,’ snarled Marduk as hot blood ran from the wound, and he brought his crozius crashing down upon the White Consul’s shoulder, pummelling him to the ground. Before the warrior could rise, he stepped forwards and brought his
weapons together, catching the warrior’s head between them.
Behind him, Burias-Drak’shal grabbed hold of the Techmarine’s servo-arm and lifted the Space Marine off the ground, smashing him into a wall. The red-armoured adept lost his grip on his weapon and fell to the floor, the sheet plating of the wall behind him a crumpled ruin. He reached for his gun, but before he could lift it Burias was on him, snarling and spitting. He grabbed the Techmarine’s head in one hand and rammed the talons of his other into his face, transfixing him to the wall for a moment before the possessed warrior ripped his talons free with a tortured wrench of metal.
One of the Razorbacks was thrown into reverse, its engines roaring, but Kol Badar held it in place, his power talons digging deeply into its fore armour. Tracks squealed as they spun, and smoke rose from the vehicle’s engines, but Kol Badar held it firmly in place, allowing his chainfist-wielding Anointed brethren to close in, carving a gaping hole in its side. Heavy flamers roared, filling the interior and cooking the driver and gunner inside.
Smoke was pouring from the other tank from grenades that had been hurled into wrenched open hatches.
Anointed brethren with roaring chainfists had moved on to the blast-doors and begun to carve through its thick layers, but their progress was slow, and Marduk snarled in frustration. In the time it would take to breach the doors their position might have been overrun or, perhaps worse, the bridge might have fallen to Ankh-Heloth’s boarding party, coming at it from a different angle.
‘Quickly now!’ snarled Marduk.
He cast another glance down the corridor, seeing the White Consuls inching their way forwards there. The enemy were gathering for a counter-attack from the rear, but they were holding back as they waited for more reinforcements.
‘What are you waiting for, you whoresons?’ he roared. ‘Come to us and die!’
He was answered almost immediately. Red light began to strobe from a pair of warning beacons mounted in sconces thirty metres back down the corridor. Grinding gears announced the arrival of two service elevators, and steam and smoke belched from within them as their doors clattered open. The deck shook beneath heavy, reverberant footsteps, and Marduk swore under his breath.
From out of the steam and smoke, a pair of immense shapes emerged.
‘I think they may have heard you,’ said the Black Legion sorcerer dryly, and Marduk cast him a dark look.
‘Dreadnoughts,’ snarled Kol Badar.
These were clearly the reinforcements that the White Consuls had been waiting for, and the battle-brothers of the hated Chapter began to advance behind the two behemoths, bolters roaring.
One of the Dreadnoughts was armed with an assault cannon that whined as it began to spin, muzzle-flare spitting from its barrels. Its exhaust stacks belched fumes as it heaved itself forward with titanic steps, its massive power claw clacking open and shut in eagerness. Its sepulchre was carved in the likeness of a stylised winged Astartes warrior, bolter clasped in its hands.
The other Dreadnought was draped in regal blue banners depicting scenes of victory. It planted its heavy feet and stabilising maglocks slammed down, rooting it in place. A second later it began to lay down a withering barrage, missiles streaming from launchers and superheated blasts screaming from the scorched double barrels of its multi-melta.
Marduk threw himself into a roll as the newcomers’ fire tore across the breadth of the corridor.
Bolters roared in response, spraying the enemy Dreadnoughts, and Reaper autocannons tore chunks out of their hull plating, yet they were barely scratched. The floor shook as the advancing Dreadnought’s momentum increased, while the screaming of its assault cannon reached a deafening pitch.
Melta guns integrated into combi-bolters fired, blurring the air with waves of heat, causing blistered welts to appear upon the Dreadnought’s ceramite plates. Cables and servos melted, dripping steaming gulps of liquefied metal onto the deck floor, but the Dreadnought did not slow.
Still firing its assault cannon, it grabbed the first Anointed brother it reached, its massive paw closing around his Terminator-armoured body and lifting him into the air. The warrior slammed his power axe into the mechanical beast’s armoured forearm, embedding it deep, before he was hurled away.
The Dreadnought smashed another cult warrior aside with a sweep of its massive arm, knocking the Terminator into a pillar. Even such a blow was not enough to finish the heavily armoured Chaos Marine, and he rose to one knee and blasted white-hot plasma from his combi-bolter into the Dreadnought’s sarcophagus. It was merely a last-ditch act of defiance and the damage it caused was negligible. The Dreadnought’s assault cannon roared and the warrior was torn apart. The mechanised behemoth’s armoured bulk rotated towards Marduk, and it began to advance upon him, stitching the corridor with lines of fire.
Krak missiles streamed up the corridor, obliterating all they touched in devastating explosions. Ignoring the danger, XVII Legion warriors moved to interpose themselves between the advancing Dreadnought and their hallowed Dark Apostle, but they were swatted aside like children and cut down by the torrent of fire spitting from the whirling barrels of its assault cannon. The torso of one warrior, a battle-scared veteran who had fought as part of the Host since its inception, simply disappeared in a cloud of bloody vapour as a multi-melta blast struck him square on. The super-heated mist of blood splattered across Marduk, who stood snarling up at the Dreadnought as it bore down upon him.
Ashkanez leapt past him with a defiant roar, smashing at the Dreadnought with his power maul. He scarcely dented its armoured plates, and the Dreadnought swept him aside with a heavy blow. He crashed into an exposed girder, which buckled beneath his weight, and fell heavily to the deck floor.
Servos and pneumatics wheezing, the White Consuls Dreadnought drew back its massive power fist. If it struck, it would crush Marduk utterly. The Dreadnought struck with a speed that belied its bulk, and Marduk only barely avoiding the blow, throwing himself into a roll that took him beneath the strike. There was a mighty crash and the sound of wrenching metal, and as Marduk came to his feet, he saw the Dreadnought’s fist embedded deep in the buckled metal of the blastdoors.
It struggled to pull itself free, and with one arm still embedded in the metal door, it dragged its assault cannon around, tearing up everything in its path as it sought to bring the heavy weapon to bear on Marduk.
With a curse, Marduk threw himself flat as thousands of rounds ripped across the corridor, leaving a smoking line of impacts where they struck.
Another warrior was melted beneath the intense heat of the other Dreadnought’s multi-melta, fusing him to the thick armoured blast-doors. Missiles roared from the launch tubes, engulfing a Coterie in a series of explosions that tore them to pieces.
Marduk heard Kol Badar’s coldly detached and calm orders to the Host, the Coryphaus confident of victory even when faced with such odds. He was directing the other assault parties, advising them and passing on fresh orders as enemy dispositions came to light.
Burias-Drak’shal and his possessed kindred were leaping towards the advancing White Consuls, tongues lolling from distended jaws and claws gouging deep furrows in the deck in their eagerness to close with them. Bolters tore great chunks out of their armour and flesh, and more than one was cut in half by concentrated fire, but only killing shots dropped them. They shrugged off lesser injuries and tore into the hated descendants of Guilliman.
The Icon Bearer himself closed the distance with the enemy Dreadnought with bounding leaps. The hulking construct fired a trio of krak missiles at Burias-Drak’shal. With unholy speed, Burias ducked beneath the first two missiles, and swung his horned head to the side to avoid the last, which missed him by less than half a hand’s breadth.
Maglocked stabilisers unhooked themselves from the deck and the Dreadnought began to back up, attempting to put more space between it and the possessed warrior bounding towards it. Its multi-melta screamed, but Burias-Drak’shal swayed to the side to avoid the blast and
launched himself into the air.
He landed on the Dreadnought’s chassis, claws digging in deep. With a bestial roar, he drew back one fist and smashed it into the armoured sarcophagus. The blow did not breach the thick armour, but he clung on as the Dreadnought swung from side to side, trying to shake him loose. Nor did his second or third blow penetrate the Dreadnought’s armour, but his fourth produced a crack.
More possessed warriors, their hulking bodies rippling with mutation, closed in around the Dreadnought. Like a rabid pack, they snarled and roared as they leapt upon its massive form, tearing armour plates loose, ripping at cables and wiring.
Marduk grinned as his chainsword carved through the midsection of a charging White Consul, relishing the rich taste of Astartes blood as it sprayed onto his lips. Blood was eagerly sucked up into the innards of his daemon blade, the beast within gorging on this feast and roaring its pleasure in the revving motor of the chainsword. He could feel the daemon pulling at his hand, urging him to kill again.
Burias-Drak’shal punched a talon into the widening crack of the Dreadnought’s sarcophagus, still clutching on to the front of the immense war machine like a horrid gargoyle. He hooked the claws of both hands into the crack and heaved at it, his entire body straining. Muscles mutated and swelled to twice their size as Burias-Drak’shal sought to rip open the sarcophagus.
More White Consuls were moving up steadily now, and a flamer was brought to bear on the Icon Bearer, liquid promethium spraying across the front of the Dreadnought. Even as his armour and flesh caught fire, Burias Drak’shal continued straining, using all his warp-enhanced strength to tear the Dreadnought’s armoured shell apart.
With a series of violent yanks, the possessed warrior tore off a cracked section of the sarcophagus, sending it clattering to the deck floor. With a roar of victory, he reached inside, grabbing the shattered form of the White Consul within and kicked off backwards, tearing the pitiful semi-living corpse from its protective housing.
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