Word Bearers

by Anthony Reynolds

  Marduk recited passages from the Canticles of Mortification as the Dreadclaw reached terminal velocity, his voice barking out over the deafening roar of turbine engines and the groaning of its super-heated, armoured sides. The assault pod screamed down through the upper atmosphere, hurtling towards the planet’s surface, bringing death to Boros Prime. G-forces pulled at the ten warriors ensconced within the armoured shell; any unaugmented human would have long succumbed to them and blacked out. Opposite Marduk, Burias grinned with savage pleasure and howled like a beast, his face hellishly lit by the red light emitted by the pulsing blisters above.

  ‘Impact thirty seconds,’ croaked the infernal, mechanised voice of the Dreadclaw through vox-grilles.

  Marduk roared his hate-filled sermon at the top of his lungs, his voice further enhanced by the vox-amps within the grille of his gleaming skull helmet. Down through the intensifying barrage being directed up at them from the ground the Dreadclaw screamed, shuddering and shaking violently, yet Marduk’s sermon never once missed a beat. He spat out his words with passion, hatred and vitriol, fuelling the fury of his warriors. Combat stimms and adrenal glands sent their serums surging through the augmented warriors’ systems, further preparing them for the glorious worship of battle.

  The Dreadclaw was struck a glancing blow from below, sending it careening off course for a moment, before righting itself and accelerating downwards once more. A further impact ripped one of the side-panels completely off the assault pod, filling the interior with glaring sunlight and roaring wind. One of the warrior brothers within was ripped away with the panel, the scream of shearing metal sounding for a moment before both disappeared.

  Scores of other Dreadclaws hurtled planetwards like meteors, their undersides glowing with heat and burning contrails streaking behind them. Tracer fire stitched across the skies, strafing up from below, thousands of kilotonnes of ammunition being fired indiscriminately heavenwards in a desperate attempt to destroy the Dreadclaws before they struck home. Retina-searing defence laser beams stabbed upwards, and a Dreadclaw no more than ten metres away simply evaporated as it was engulfed in one of these beams, every devoted warrior brother within perishing instantly.

  Still Marduk continued his fiery exhortation, the death of his brothers merely adding fuel to his sermon, his voice heard over the roar of engines and the deafening wind.

  The Dreadclaw tilted its trajectory slightly, its guidance controls struggling to keep it on target, and as it rotated its occupants were afforded a view across the sprawling city below them.

  Bathed in sunlight, the city below was a gleaming expanse of white marble and parapets, and streaming defensive fire scythed up at them from hundreds of castellated towers, fortified bastions and rotating turrets set atop domed cathedrals and spires. Like industrious ants, people could be seen moving purposefully through tree-lined streets and along colonnaded boulevards and arched bridgeways, though whether they were soldiers or mere civilians, Marduk neither knew nor cared – they would all die.

  The ground was approaching with alarming swiftness as the Dreadclaw screamed downwards, and even as he bellowed his hateful catechisms and psalms of defilement, Marduk prepared himself for disembarkation. With a glance he assessed the combat readiness of his comrades, and ran a swift diagnostic check of his weapons and armour, information feeds scrolling across his irises.

  His heart was pounding with anticipation, and he could detect the scent of eagerness being exuded by his gene-brothers. Cannon fire screamed by them, missing the Dreadclaw by scant metres, and then the view outside was obscured by marble and sculpture. Retro burners kicked in, filling the air with flame and screaming engines, and their rapid acceleration was reduced, slowing the descent just before the moment of impact.

  A fraction of a second later the Dreadclaw hit the ground with spine-compacting force, its talons embedding deep into marble.

  Restraint harnesses were retracted instantly and the Word Bearers piled out of the assault pod behind Marduk, roaring with fury and hatred.

  Enemy soldiers were falling back away from them, and Marduk’s pupils contracted as he focused on this prey.

  ‘Come, my brethren!’ he bellowed. ‘Let us murder them!’

  The Dark Apostle hurled himself into the fray, hacking and cutting like a berserker. Bolters bucked like angry beasts in the hands of the Word Bearers, and chainswords revved furiously as their hunger was sated on the blood of these pathetic specimens of humanity. Only after these first soldiers were slaughtered did Marduk take in his location.

  They had landed in the middle of a large column-edged square, overlooked by towering arched bastions and profane temples. Soaring arched bridges and flyways crossed far overhead, and huge weighted royal blue banners stitched with Imperialist propaganda and symbols were draped down their sides. Statues stood atop the massive columns, and Marduk snarled in hatred as he saw that they were depictions of White Consuls and Ultramarines, standing sentinel in heroic poses, bolters clasped in hands and heads wreathed in ivy.

  Other Dreadclaws were streaming down from the heavens. Several crashed nearby, causing the ground to crack beneath them. One of them brought a towering statue of a Space Marine captain plummeting to the ground as it hit it with the force of a falling meteor, smashing it to splinters. Another struck one of the high arched bridges and broke straight through, leaving a gaping hole before slamming down into the middle of an ostentatious fountain. A great spume of water and steam was sent up as the glowing red assault pod hit home.

  One drop-pod was shredded by flak as it descended, and came apart in mid-air, trailing black smoke, flames and debris. Astartes figures could be seen silhouetted against the fire as they tumbled from the shattered Dreadclaw.

  It took Marduk a moment to assess his location, estimating that they had been driven several hundred metres off course. He saw their target up ahead and with a roar led his warriors in its direction, sprinting across the square as the sky overhead was torn apart by gunfire, streaming missiles and rapidly descending drop-pods.

  Their objective loomed up ahead of them, and Marduk stared up at it hatefully. The gigantic, broad-based tower squatted at the north end of the square, replete with statuary and bas-relief of famous White Consuls battles. Fifty-metre-high lance battery barrels protruded from its gleaming, golden dome, and dozens of flak-cannon turrets and missile racks bristled down its sides. The weight of fire from this tower was immense, and Marduk saw several Dreadclaws ripped apart. There were a dozen such towers within the landing zone, and each of them was marked as priority targets for the assaulting Chaos Legion.

  The air tingled with electricity and there was a sudden influx of air before the lance battery fired. Were it not for the autosensors of his helmet dimming his vision at the sudden burst of light, Marduk would have been blinded temporarily as it fired. A beam of pure light stabbed upwards towards the distant Word Bearers fleet in high orbit. Concentrated fire from lance batteries could cripple even the largest battleships; neutralising them was of paramount importance.

  Even without the immense firepower of the enemy star fort, Boros Prime’s ground defences were more than enough to see off the most determined orbital assault. As such, merely bombarding the world into submission was not an option. The Infidus Diabolus would unleash its payload and launch the warriors of the 34th Host from its hangar bays and Dreadclaw tubes, but once done, it would pull away and join Ekodas’s attack upon the star fort.

  Lasfire stabbed from the buildings overlooking the square, fired from behind crenulations and through vision slits. Marduk hissed in anger as one of the shots struck him, scorching his shoulder plate black and causing several of the devotional oath papers nailed there to burst into flame, the scripture reduced to ash.

  He could see figures running to take up position above them, lining up along the fortified rooftops overlooking the square, but Marduk ignored them, focussing on his target. One of his brethren stumbled and fell as he was struck by a dozen white-hot las-beams,
penetrating and igniting the external cabling and tubing of his power armour. None of the Word Bearers deigned to stop to help their fallen brother; the Gods of Chaos had clearly seen weakness in his soul, and had thus failed to protect him. Further beams struck Marduk on his shoulders and back, making him grit his teeth in fury. Burias was struck a glancing blow across the side of his skull, taking off his left ear and leaving a cauterised burn down the side of his head. He snarled in anger and the change came over him in an instant as the daemon Drak’shal surged to the surface.

  Autocannon fire from armoured turrets upon the immense defence tower began to rip across the square, tearing up chunks of marble and smashing XVII Legion warriors from their feet. The sacred power armour of the Word Bearers caught in the enfilades was torn to shreds and their flesh riddled with bullets, but most battled on, the pain merely adding to their hate. A spray of autocannon fire struck Burias-Drak’shal in the shoulder and side, and he roared in defiance, lifting the 34th’s holy icon high over his head as his daemon-infused bellow echoed out across the square.

  ‘Incoming!’ came the shout from one of Marduk’s warriors.

  A moment later, a modified Dreadclaw smashed down in front of Marduk and his Coterie, striking with colossal force, cracking the marble slabs beneath it. Its sides, blistered and charred from atmospheric entry, exploded outwards, slamming heavily down onto the ground. Marduk dropped down to one knee behind it, taking cover from the intensifying fire.

  ‘Greetings, young one,’ boomed the Warmonger, stepping heavily from the modified drop-pod. ‘The Emperor’s Palace will fall this day. I feel it in my bones.’

  The holy Dreadnought had been rearmed for this mission, heavy bolters replaced with an immense breaching drill, studded with adamantine teeth capable of tearing through even the most heavily fortified bastion. The apex of the fearsome weapon was formed of a dozen separate, rotating adamantine cones, studded with coral-like teeth. Designed by the warsmiths of the Iron Warriors to crack the defences of the Emperor’s Palace long ago, Marduk was not surprised to discover that armed in such a manner, the Warmonger was again locked in one of his delusions of times past.

  Anything struck by the breaching drill, be it a reinforced rockcrete bunker, a front-line battle tank or the leg of a Titan, would be torn apart. Underslung beneath the potent weapon, a twin-linked meltagun protruded.

  ‘The gateway, revered one!’ shouted Marduk, pointing towards the golden doorway leading into the defence tower. ‘It must be opened!’

  ‘If such is Lorgar’s will,’ boomed the Dreadnought, turning towards the gateway. Lurching into motion, the war machine began to walk steadily forwards, cracking paving stones underfoot with every step, ignoring the autocannon rounds and stabbing las-rounds that stung its immense armoured form. Marduk and his warriors broke into a loping run, using the Dreadnought as mobile cover.

  The golden doors were wide enough for a super-heavy tank, and over thirty metres in height. A twin-headed eagle had been sculptured in bas-relief upon its surface, and Marduk felt the rage build within him as he stared at the hateful icon, the symbol of the Imperium and the cursed False Emperor, the Great Betrayer.

  The Warmonger struck the doors like a battering ram, lowering one shoulder and driving its full weight into the golden surface, which buckled – but held – under the impact. With a mechanical roar, the Dreadnought slammed its madly whirring breaching drill into the slim fissure where the two doors came together. There was a hideous sound of screeching metal, and sparks and glowing splinters of gold plating and the underlying bonded ceramite and adamantium spat out around the Dreadnought. Lascutters and meltashears built into the drill carved through the door. Lasbeams stabbed ineffectually at the Warmonger from narrow slits either side of the gateway’s alcove. Marduk hurled a grenade through one of those slits high overhead and grinned in satisfaction as he heard the panicked shouts within, followed by the muffled explosion.

  Then a breach the size of the Warmonger was carved in the gateway, and Marduk and his brethren followed the Dreadnought through, roaring their fury.

  Soldiers wearing blue tabards over grey carapace armour were waiting for them, arrayed in overlapping serried ranks, lasguns lowered, and they unleashed a barrage that saw several Word Bearers fall. Another one dropped, his chest plate melted beneath a searing plasma blast.

  ‘For Lorgar!’ bellowed Marduk, and led the charge.

  The enemy began to fall back. They maintained good discipline but were unprepared for the sheer ferocity of the Word Bearers, who raced headlong into their fire, bolters and flamers roaring.

  Marduk snapped off a trio of bolts, each a killing shot, before he reached the enemy lines and the blood began to flow in earnest. None of the soldiers stood even to his shoulder, and he smashed two of them aside with one sweep of his crozius, bones turned to powder beneath the force of his first blow. He smashed his bolt pistol into the face of another, the man’s features disintegrating as his bone structure crumpled inwards, before knocking aside a lasgun pointed at his head and planting a foot squarely into the chest of another, shattering the soldier’s ribs and pulping the organs within.

  It was amazing that they had ever achieved anything at all, Marduk thought as he slaughtered the hapless soldiers. He and his brethren were so far beyond these wretched, redundant, pathetic creatures. The only possible purpose of their meaningless lives was as slaves and sacrifices.

  The Word Bearers tore through the tower guards without mercy. With curt orders, Marduk sent them spreading throughout the enemy structure. The entire tower was constructed around the immense defence laser protruding up through its middle, and the air was electric as the mass energy capacitors buried beneath the structure powered up to fire once more.

  ‘I want this place silenced and secured!’ he roared, stamping towards a spiralling stairwell. ‘Every moment it remains operational more noble sons of Lorgar perish!’

  Five kilometres to the north-east, Kol Badar broke the spine of a Guardsman with a twist of his power talons before tossing the broken body aside as if it weighed nothing at all. He stalked forwards, glass crunching beneath his footfalls. He ignored the butchered enemy soldiers and adepts strewn across the floor and slumped at their machinery, and looked out of the control room window.

  The control room was positioned atop another of the defence laser towers, and he stared out across the wartorn city. In the space of ten minutes it had been turned into hell, but Kol Badar felt no particular satisfaction. After millennia of constant warfare, after organising the deaths of a thousand worlds, he felt nothing. The sky was still being torn apart by missiles and tracer fire and he grimaced as defence lasers continued to send their searing blasts heavenward.

  ‘Target secured and silenced,’ he growled. ‘Strike groups, report.’

  One by one, the reports came filtering in. The attack was going well. Each of the defence lasers designated as the prime targets should fall silent within the next five minutes, creating a safe corridor for the heavier mass transports to descend. Still, they should have been silenced already.

  A report from high orbit was relayed to him, the information scrolling before his eyes, and he swore.

  ‘Objective update,’ Kol Badar growled, re-opening the vox-channel to all the champions leading the various strike forces. ‘The enemy star fort has almost completed its rotation, faster than predicted. Our ships in high orbit will be coming under heavy fire within five minutes, and must pull back. Mass transporters en route. The window for their safe deployment has been reduced dramatically. Silence those damn guns! Silence them now!’

  Marduk swore as he received Kol Badar’s update, and he grunted with effort as he slammed his foot into the heavy-gauge door, half tearing it off its hinges. Sparks spurted from damaged cabling, and the door crashed inwards as Marduk kicked it again.

  A pair of robed acolytes, their shaven heads tattooed with binary code, rose in alarm, and Marduk gunned them both down, his bolt pistol kicking in his hand
. Their chests exploded, blood and bone spraying across the walls as the mass-reactive tips of the bolts detonated.

  The interior was dark and filled with the mechanical whine of gyro-stabilisers and grind of ammunition feeds. This was one of the dozens of flak turrets on the exterior of the defence tower, and as the powerful weapon began firing again the room was lit up harshly. The sound was deafening. Two gunners were strapped into the rotating turret. Their control harness was a framework capable of swivelling up and down and through one hundred and eighty degrees, powered by wheezing servos. Flickering green screens hung before them, showing targeting matrices and data streams, and they gripped the pistol-grip controls of the flak-turret tightly, thumbs depressed upon triggers.

  Intent upon their targeting monitors and with their ears muffled from the roar of their guns, the gunners had no clue that their pitiful lives were about to end.

  One of the men gave a whoop as he brought down a target, and Marduk growled. Stepping forward onto the turret, he grabbed one of the gunners by the front of his flak-vest and ripped him from his seat, snapping his restraint buckles. He pounded the man headfirst into the turret’s framework, and tossed the lifeless corpse aside. The other gunner, seeing the fate of his comrade, struggled to release himself from his restraint. Marduk punched his hand through the soldier’s chest, fingers straight as a blade. Closing his hand around the man’s heart, he ripped it free with a yank. The man stared incomprehendingly at his own beating heart in his moments before death.

  Marduk dropped off the turret, which fell silent as its one remaining, lifeless gunner slumped backwards in his seat.

  Marduk strode back into the corridor. Adepts were being dragged from side rooms and butchered. Conserving ammunition, warrior brothers broke necks and shattered skulls with clubbing blows from bolters and fists. Others had their throats torn out or were cut from groin to neck with knives the length of a human’s thigh. Others were merely slung into walls, their skulls caving in from the force, or tossed over the gantry banisters, falling to the distant floor below.