by Andy Clark
Tattered streamers of mauve smog trailed the Chaos Space Marines as they strode down the building’s steps and out into the surging crowds. There were only thirty-two of the crimson warriors, half of his brotherhood. The others were spread across Donatos Primus, leading the traitor hordes as they battled to exterminate remaining pockets of loyalist resistance. It didn’t matter. Even a single Word Bearer would have stood out like a beacon amidst the churning mass of humanity below. Thirty-two of them seemed, by their sheer presence, to outnumber the thousands that surrounded them. Those among the crowd who laid eyes upon the Word Bearers prostrated themselves, or fell to their knees in frantic worship. Many were trampled by the press of zealots surging from behind to catch a glimpse of their supposed saviours. Bone cracked, and blood slicked the ground. Pitiful screams were lost amid the idiot howl of the masses. With his heightened senses, Varakh’Lorr heard every one, and they stretched his cruel grin wider.
‘The worthy shall be chosen!’ roared the Dark Apostle. At his words, the Chaos Space Marines began to forge through the crowd. They swatted aside those too slow to clear their path, and bones broke with every callous swipe. Horned helms and twisted, battle-scarred faces turned left and right as the Word Bearers made a show of seeking some ineffable quality amidst the hordes. First to pick, as always, was Daksha. Over-eager, thought Varakh’Lorr scornfully. The anticipation, the mob violence, the ecstasy and terror that went with the choosing was part of the ritual. It should not be rushed. Yet Daksha craved bloodshed, for the grip of the red lord was strong upon his soul, and patience became ever less his virtue.
Armour festooned with bloody meat-hooks, Daksha reached into the crowd and gripped a militia soldier by the front of his tattered uniform. The Word Bearer lifted the man effortlessly from amongst the masses, holding him up like some strange trophy. The chosen one wept with terror and joy, utterly overcome by emotions so strong that he shook like a rag doll.
‘The first!’ announced Varakh’Lorr. ‘Who else shall be found worthy? Who else amongst you is blessed in the sight of the gods? Who has earned their gifts?’ The crowd went wild with beseeching cries and frantic declarations of worthiness. Some turned upon one another, thinking to offer some violent proof there and then. Whole sections of the tight-packed herd descended into mob violence, people screaming and attempting to shield themselves while fists and feet lashed all around. The Word Bearers ignored the savage scuffles, plucking their chosen candidates from amongst the crowd. Men and women were lifted high, while all around them those not chosen wailed and rent their clothing in anguish. Varakh’Lorr laughed aloud as he saw one of the chosen grabbed by several other members of the crowd, who jealously attempted to drag him from his captor’s grip. The Word Bearer in question, Kashor’Kol, hoisted his prize away from the grasping hands and casually backhanded the nearest of those who had interfered. The woman’s neck broke at the force of the blow, and her lifeless body was sent flailing over the heads of the crowd. Varakh’Lorr heard it all as though he stood amidst the press, felt as his own the disdain of Kashor’Kol. No more attempts were made to interrupt the choosing.
‘So do the warriors of the gods see the worthiest amongst you!’ cried Varakh’Lorr, pointing one taloned finger at the crowd. ‘So are the ascendant borne to a greater fate!’
At this, the Word Bearers turned as one and forged a path back towards the towering doors of the generatorum. As they vanished into the coiling mauve fumes, each warrior bore a Donatosian with them. The horde surged at their backs, spilling up against the doors with painful force. The Dark Apostle allowed bedlam to reign for a few moments, then roared out a single word.
‘Silence!’
The quiet that followed was broken only by the agonised moans of those too insensible or pained to obey. It fell so suddenly it seemed supernatural. Thousands upon thousands of faces stared up at Varakh’Lorr, expressions beseeching, or fearful, or both.
‘The worthy have been chosen,’ uttered the Dark Apostle. ‘But all of you have the strength within you to be chosen as well. You need only prove yourselves to the gods. Do you wish to throw off your mortal shackles?’
Varakh’Lorr sprang to the very edge of the broken balcony, perching upon its bullet-scarred lip like some daemonic gargoyle. His parchment cloak fell about his shoulders like wings. Below him, his frantic congregation bellowed out their answer, a monster roaring, in a single voice.
Yes.
‘Do you wish to rise up from the filth? And the misery? And the servitude of mortality?’
Yes, they howled, knowing not what it was they desired. Yes.
‘Will you do what you must to earn the gods’ favour?’
Yes, they screamed, and Varakh’Lorr savoured his power over the mindless masses. Below, in the bowels of the generatorum, the chosen would be getting readied for their fate. Out here, countless fools bleated their desire to join them. They would do anything to earn the reward that he offered. Yes, greatness was close.
‘Then fight!’ cried Varakh’Lorr. ‘Fight for your new gods. Fight to show your devotion, your worth. Even now the dogs of the False Emperor are loose upon this world and they seek to take away your newfound freedom.’
Screams of outrage at this. Howls of anger. All the madness and fury of the pit. The Dark Apostle drank it in like bloody wine, and felt his nerves sing.
‘They have come to this world because they will do anything to take your hope from you. Anything, to place their boots upon your backs. Anything, to force your faces down into the filth once more.’ Small chance of that, thought Varakh’Lorr with cruel amusement. The Imperial invaders would want nothing from these traitors but their blood. Still, his words were having the desired effect. Anger burned through the mob like a firestorm. Their outrage and fear were incandescent as newborn stars.
‘Already, the enemy have taken Pentakhost from those who were too weak to stop them!’ Varakh’Lorr was careful to load his voice with just the right blend of scorn, disappointment and anger. The crowd felt the emotions as their own, and bellowed their need for vengeance.
‘Shall they march on unopposed?’
No, roared the crowd.
‘Shall they defeat the faithful warriors I see before me?’
No, they roared again.
‘Shall you allow the False Emperor to claim back this world, and to steal the true gods’ due?’
No, they howled, and Varakh’Lorr relished his flock’s devotion and stupidity.
‘Then go!’ he cried. ‘Go! Spread the word to all you meet! The slaves of the Imperium shall be turned back, no matter the cost. So shall you prove your worth. So shall you be chosen!’
Varakh’Lorr turned his back upon his worshippers and left them to fight their way back out of the plaza. Preachers and officers amongst their number would harness their fervour and direct their strengths. He had lost interest in them already. Below, in his sanctum, there awaited more important matters. The Dark Apostle vanished back into the bloody shadows of the generatorum, Gothro’Gol’s monstrous footsteps thumping behind him.
Deep within the violated generatorum, past enginariums, pipe-conduit-congregati and incomprehensible tangles of machinery the size of super-heavy tanks, lay Varakh’Lorr’s sanctum. The Word Bearers had transformed the building’s primary shrine to the Omnissiah, hurling down the tech-idols and raising in their place statues and icons of the Dark Gods. Chaotic runes crawled upon every surface. Servitors had been ripped from their work stations and strung up cruciform within hideous cradles of razor-wire. Occasionally, they still writhed and moaned as flickers of unholy life passed through them. Electrosconces and brazier-pits burned with black flame from which the billowing mauve fumes arose, and from the ceiling hung a vast, eight pointed star.
The chosen ones were already present as Varakh’Lorr entered the sanctum. They stood, white faced and shaking, in a perfectly spaced circle beneath the eight pointed star. None of them could have missed the old blood trails that led from where they stood to the br
oad, brass bowl set in the chamber’s floor. Behind each chosen stood a Word Bearer, firmly gripping his charge’s shoulders and ensuring they didn’t have second thoughts. The Dark Apostle’s entrance caused a shudder of wonderment and terror to pass through the chosen ones. Most had never seen their deliverers up close. At least some of them had to be questioning the wisdom of rebellion by now. Those who could think straight with the daemonic incense filling their lungs, at least. A shame for them that it was far, far too late to recant their sins.
‘Chosen ones,’ said Varakh’Lorr with a warm grin, ignoring the daemonic visages he could see flickering in the periphery of his vision. ‘You are the worthiest of all. You are fit for the gods’ consideration. And for their table.’ At these cruel words, real panic appeared on the faces of his most alert victims. The rest stared in blank wonderment, or else wept or laughed hysterically at whatever it was the clouds of incense showed them. It didn’t matter. None of them was going anywhere.
At a signal from the Dark Apostle, thirty-two Word Bearers unsheathed sacrificial blades and raised them high. As they did so, Varakh’Lorr strode to the centre of the circle, leaving Gothro’Gol looming at its edge. The Dark Apostle began a chant, a dark, jagged mantra that caused the light in the sanctum to wane and the shadows to leap and crawl. He stopped before the brass dish and raised his blade, dragging it across his armoured palm. It had been long years since Varakh’Lorr and his armour were truly separate entities, and at his blade’s kiss the armoured palm split open. Black blood dribbled out, sizzling like acid as it spattered into the sacrificial font.
‘Sh’zech Thossil K’zakh’hzahn,’ cried Varakh’Lorr, and reality shivered at the words. His followers repeated the chant, voices menacing and monstrous, cold and cruel. As they did so, they swung their blades outward and, with terrible inevitability, dragged their serrated edges across thirty-two human throats. A few of the sacrifices managed pitiful screams before their windpipes were sawed through. Blood jetted, pattering into the brass font like storm rain. It gushed in streams, drenching the twitching, clawing sacrifices as the Word Bearers held them firm. It flowed into the unholy dish where it mingled with the Dark Apostle’s own. There, as Varakh’Lorr continued his Chaotic chant, it began to swirl.
The blood spun slowly to begin with, washing around the font like wine swirled in a balloon glass. As more flooded the bowl, and the Dark Apostle’s chant grew in vehemence and volume, the rotation increased its pace. As it spun it rose into a whirling column. As the sacrifices bled white and twitched their last, spectral fire leapt in the font, coiling itself around the blood spire. Varakh’Lorr’s dark chant rang around the chamber as the ghost-flames roared and the shadows danced madly. One by one the braziers and sconces went out as though snuffed, leaving the Word Bearers standing upon the edge of darkness, the only illumination the column of fire and blood.
With a final exhortation, Varakh’Lorr’s chant ended. The base of the column lifted free of the font, as fire and blood spun up into the air. They melded into one, fiery heat and intense cold pouring off them, before, with a final implosive bang, they stabilised as a glowing hole in reality.
From that terrible rent blew a sour and reeking wind, bearing with it the stench of the unknowable void. Fire danced around the hole’s periphery, and though it hung vertically in the air like a tunnel entrance, blood dripped slowly into the rent as though into some terrible, depthless well.
Varakh’Lorr knelt, and all of his brethren followed suit, save only Gothro’Gol. The Dark Apostle felt the terrible regard of the thing that dwelt in those endless shadows, the entity that lurked beyond the veil like some fairy tale ogre in its cave. Yet this monster was all too real, and though he was mighty, Varakh’Lorr dreaded the thought of that thing crawling from its cave more than anything he had ever known. The Word Bearers trafficked with many daemons, but few were as terrifying as That Which Dwells in Darkness.
The silence stretched long, becoming ever more unbearable.
‘Hear me, oh daemon,’ said Varakh’Lorr at last, realising the entity waited to be addressed.
‘Varakh’Lorrrrrrr…’ The thing’s voice spilled from the pit, a slithering death rattle of a sound, and the Dark Apostle grimaced as the words brushed gossamer and wet across his flesh.
‘I bring you an offering, in the old way, as it has always been done,’ intoned Varakh’Lorr. ‘Blood of traitors. Blood of innocents. Blood taken unwillingly, and given beneath the Octed’s eye.’
For a moment, nothing manifested but that sluggish, ice-cold breeze. Far away across the sanctum, in what had once been the choristrium-pit, a huge shadow stirred and gave a thrumming rumble of discontent. Varakh’Lorr ignored it, keeping his attention fixed solely upon the hole that spun in reality. To look away would be to show disrespect to That Which Dwells in Darkness, and to do that was to invoke its terrible curse. At last, the daemon’s voice squirmed forth.
‘It is goooood…’
‘This pleases me,’ replied Varakh’Lorr, fighting to keep the relief from his voice. One must never show even a shred of weakness before a daemon. Old comrades had lost their souls for less.
‘What do you wishhhhhh….?’
The question came loaded with unspoken menace, and Varakh’Lorr’s hearts beat faster as he thought he saw something glint like an eye amidst the darkness. It took all his strength to hold his gaze upon the warp tear as he answered.
‘I seek communion with the one who lies,’ he said, ignoring the black blood that had begun to trickle from one of his nostrils. ‘I seek to learn our enemies’ plans.’
For a long moment, silence reigned. Varakh’Lorr felt something horrible squirming across his skin, and the muscles beneath one eye twitched as he realised that scrabbling, insectile things were wriggling their way busily out of the joints of his armour. He fought not to retch as one of them clambered up his throat and tumbled out across his tongue, all scrabbling legs and blindly flailing antennae. Finally, just as he thought he could stand no more, the daemon answered.
‘Yessssss….’
Relief filled Varakh’Lorr as the insect-presences vanished, and the terror within the rift receded into darkness. Seconds dripped slow as tar, and the bulky shape in the choristrium-pit stirred again. Then, a voice filtered from the darkness. Asexual, echoing, barely a whisper. Yet it carried to Varakh’Lorr’s heightened senses clear as daylight, and his confidence returned at the sound.
‘To whom do I speak?’ came the voice.
‘You address Varakh’Lorr, Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers, Master of the Scribed Blade, lord of Chaos upon this world.’
‘Well met, Lord Varakh’Lorr,’ said the distant whisperer.
‘And what of you?’ demanded the Dark Apostle. ‘Once before you spoke to me through this daemon. To beg favour from That Which Dwells in Darkness you must have the gods’ regard, yet you claim to stand amongst the forces of the Imperium on this world. How?’
The icy breath of the void crawled across him. Spectral firelight flickered, and the menace of the daemon hung like a pall over all. At last, an answer came.
‘I am your ally, lord,’ replied the voice. ‘Who I am is unimportant. It is what I can tell you that matters. The Imperial crusade has come to this world and it is mighty. But I was in their midst as they drew up their plans of conquest. I can tell you everything you need to defeat them, and, as I promised before, I bring you the weapons to make your victory complete. If you will honour our bargain?’
‘I shall aid you in your quest for power,’ replied Varakh’Lorr, ‘providing you aid me in mine. But know that a daemonic compact is not broken lightly. Should you play me false, ally, I will burn your soul from your body and feed it to the furies.’
‘I understand, my lord,’ came the whispering voice. ‘I am your loyal servant. You have nothing to fear from me.’
‘No,’ sneered Varakh’Lorr, licking his black tongue across his fangs. ‘I don’t. Now, tell me all that you know.’
‘A
s you command,’ came the whisper. ‘The crusade that has landed its forces upon Donatos is led by High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis, lord of House Draconis and regent of the Knight World of Adrastapol…’
Slowly, amidst the darkness of the Word Bearers sanctum, the secrets of the Imperial force were laid bare. Varakh’Lorr committed every detail to memory, and together with his traitorous ally, he plotted the downfall of his foes.
During the early stages of the campaign on Donatos, it was necessary for the Knights of Adrastapol and their allies to push north from the bottleneck of the peninsula. A foe contained is a foe defeated, as the saying goes. King Tolwyn despatched several dozen lances, each accompanying reconnaissance groups of Astra Militarum soldiery. Their mission was simple – they were to pave the way for the big push against the valle electrum by scouting enemy positions, securing transit routes and ensuring a safe corridor of advance for the bulk of the Imperial forces. As locations ideal for rally points, retreat-rendezvous and secondary fortifications were cleared, they were auspex-marked with glowing runes. While this was far from glorious battle, it was necessary and rewarding work, the Knights advancing in full panoply, their steeds striding nobly through the desolation.
Our own, fair Adrastapol is a world of rugged landscapes, including a great many sweeping plains and craggy oceans of grassland. Donatos had never been thus, transformed from the first into an industrial sprawl by the hand of mankind. Now, further deformed by that of the traitor, it must have seemed truly hellish to those brave Knights who were used to the austere beauty and vast, blue skies of their home world. Donatos was a mauled industrial tangle that never seemed to end. Its grey, industrio-urban sprawl was crisscrossed by cracked ferrocrete highways, each one wide enough for six Knights abreast. Around those arterial transit routes rose refinery complexes, generatorum shrines, manufactora, servitor-workshops, weaponshops, tank factories, munitions conveyors, worker habs and a thousand other sorts of metal-and-stone monstrosities that grew together like a literal urban jungle. In places the structures towered to such cyclopean heights that even the Knights must have felt small and insignificant in their shadows. Narrow road-grids, alleyways and pipelines interspersed the structures like capillaries. Many of the buildings boasted grim statuary, huge skull-and-cog icons of the Mechanicus, industrial incense burners and other grim, gothic flourishes. Eye-witness accounts tell us that much of that decoration had been battle-damaged or defaced by the rebels, festooned with designs and banners proclaiming the might of the Ruinous Powers. Statues of the Omnissiah lay shattered in the roadways where they had been toppled. Corpses dangled from towering buildings like macabre fruit, the rotting remains of those who had refused to join their fellows’ heresy.