Dark Apostle

He is weak, thought Marduk, licking his lips.

'You feel the awakening, First Acolyte,' said Jarulek.

'Yes, Dark Apostle. It is… astounding.' Marduk replied truthfully. 'It must have taken much of your strength to imbue the tower with such potency.'

Jarulek waved a hand dismissively.

'The great gods gift me with the power to enact their will,' said the Dark Apostle lightly, but Marduk could see that he was almost utterly drained.

Jarulek saw Marduk's narrowed eyes and raised an eyebrow on his skeletal face.

'You have something to say, First Acolyte?'

'No, my Dark Apostle,' he said. It would not be wise for Marduk to antagonise his master, not yet. 'I am merely in awe of the power of your faith. I aspire one day to reach such glorified heights.'

'Perhaps, but the path to enlightenment is a long and painful road. Many fall along the way to eternal damnation and torment, seeking that which they desire too quickly, or by taking up challenges that are far beyond their reach,' said the Dark Apostle evenly, his velvet voice enunciating the words carefully.

'With your guidance, lord, I hope to avoid falling prey to such temptations,' said Marduk.

'As I would expect, my First Acolyte. The Imperials draw near?'

'They do, my lord. The Coryphaus pulls the Host back from its advance.'

'I do not require the Host to hold them indefinitely. It is but days until the conjunction. That is when Korsis will be largest in the sky and the seven planets of this system will be aligned. We need but hold them until then. The Coryphaus understands my needs.'

'To be pushed back at all is an insult to the Legion. It shames us all.'

'To expect the unattainable is foolish, my First Acolyte. I never asked Kol Badar to destroy the foe, it is unnecessary. He must merely hold them until the alignment and buy time for the Gehemehnet to be completed.'

'And it is nearing completion, my lord?'

'It is. That is why I have called you back from the front line, to aid me in the final stages of its summoning. This Gehemehnet is to be different from any other totem that has been constructed before, for I have called it forth not to turn this planet to a daemon world, but to shatter it utterly,' said the Dark Apostle with a smile on his face.

'My lord?'

'It must be complete for the alignment. When the red planet is high, the Daemonschage will toll, signalling the death of this planet, and a great treasure will be revealed, a treasure that will be unlocked by the Enslaved.'

'The Enslaved?'

'One who will come to us. With the secrets unlocked, we will launch a new era of terror upon the followers of the Corpse Emperor. We will take the fight to those we hate the most.'

'The arrogant, cursed offspring of Guilliman,' said Marduk.

'Indeed.'

'First Acolyte, a question.'

'Yes, my lord?' asked Marduk, frowning.

'Have any holy scriptures appeared on your flesh yet?'

'No, my lord. I bear none but the passage that you honoured me with,' he said, indicating his left cheek where the skin of the Dark Apostle had knitted with his own.

'Tell me immediately if words begin to form upon your skin, First Acolyte. They… they mark your readiness to proceed with your induction into the fold.'

'Thank you, my lord,' said Marduk, bemused. 'I will consult you immediately should such a thing occur.'

'They are planning to pound us into the ground with their artillery,' commented Burias, standing atop the first defensive line and watching as the Imperials advanced slowly. 'Are we just going to cower back here and allow them?'

The salt plains were spread with Imperials as far as the eye could see. They advanced in a massive, sweeping arc towards the curved first line of the Word Bearers' defence. The first bulwark was wider than the other three that guarded the crumbled remains of the Imperial city and, but for the reserve led by Bokkar, every warrior of the Host stood upon it awaiting the enemy. Havoc squads hunkered down within those bunkers that were intact, placed at one hundred metre intervals.

Burias and Kol Badar stood side by side as they watched the advance of the foe. A mass of salt dust rose up behind the advancing army.

Kol Badar swung around, his one good eye staring coldly down at the Icon Bearer. His other eye, shattered by shrapnel, had been replaced with an arcane augmetic sensor by the chirurgeons.

'You question the orders of your Coryphaus, whelp?' he snarled.

'No, Coryphaus, but I feel Drak'shal raging to be unleashed.'

'Keep a rein on your daemon parasite, Burias. Its time will come soon.'

'I shall, Coryphaus.'

'They have more ordnance than we.'

'There is no sign of that Ordinatus machine, though.'

'No. Its range is not as great as their artillery's. If it advanced ahead of the main battle line, it would sustain damage. The methodology of the Adeptus Mechanicus is rigid. They deviate not at all from their ritual tenets and the modes of behaviour programmed into their mechanical heads. They will not risk damage to the machine.'

'You know a lot about the followers of the Machine-God, my lord?'

'I have learnt much from the Forgemasters of Ghalmek. And I fought alongside Tech-Priests of the Mechanicum during the Great Crusade, marching to battle alongside blessed Lorgar and the Warmaster,' he said, bitterness in his voice. 'And afterwards, I fought against them.'

'I am sorry to have dredged up painful memories, Coryphaus.'

Kol Badar waved away the words of the younger Word Bearers warrior-brother.

'Bitterness, anger and hatred is what fuels the fires within. If we forget the past then we will lose the passion to dethrone the False Emperor. To lose the fire is to fail in our sacred duty, the Long War,' growled Kol Badar. A thought struck him, was the Dark Apostle fuelling his own hatred of the First Acolyte to keep the fires within him stoked? He dismissed the thought instantly as irrelevant to the situation at hand.

The Coryphaus placed the talons of his power claw upon Burias's shoulder plate and exerted just enough pressure for the ceramite to groan.

'No, we do not attack just yet. But when we do, Burias, you will lead it,' he said generously.

'You do me much honour, Coryphaus,' said Burias, surprise on his face.

'You may be the lackey of a wretched whoreson, but you should not be held in the shadows because of it,' said Kol Badar.

Burias tensed and the warlord could see the daemon within flash in his eyes.

'The First Acolyte is on the cusp of greatness,' said Kol Badar, 'though it is a dangerous position and his fate is not yet determined. He may yet be deemed unworthy. Your precious master may fail at the last. Be wary, young Burias. Make sure you know where your loyalty lies, with the Legion, or with an individual.'

Burias stared at the Coryphaus for a moment before he gave a sharp nod of his head and Kol Badar released his crushing grip on the Icon Bearer's shoulder.

'Do well, and I will see you initiated into the cult of the Anointed,' said Kol Badar and he was pleased to see fires of ambition and greed come to life within the younger Icon Bearer's eyes. He had him.

'Go now. Gather the most vicious berserkers of the Host. I want eight fully mechanised coteries ready to roll out on my word. I feel that the enemy will bring the fight to us, and when they do, I want you ready to meet them head on.'

Marduk walked with the Dark Apostle towards a small, twin-engine transport, the pair of holy warriors accompanied by an honour guard. Daemon heads spewed smoke as its engines were revved and the doors hissed shut behind the Word Bearers. Marduk saw the Dark Apostle's eyes close in prayer or exhaustion.

On the short journey to the base of the Gehemehnet, Marduk marvelled at how the Imperial city had been transformed. From a bustling city of millions, it had been rendered into a wasteland of industry. Every building had been levelled and the fires of the Chaos factorums blazed in the dim light, spewing fumes and smog into the roiling sky. The ground was black with oil and pollution, and lines of slaves, each a thousand strong or more, wound through the black detritus and slag piles like multi-legged insects. Huge pistons drove up and down, conveyor belts piled with rock and bodies fed into hissing, steaming vaults and furnaces, and chains with links larger than battle tanks wound around immense wheels, turning the machineries of Chaos. It was almost like an infant version of Ghalmek, the daemonic forge monastery world, one of the great stronghold worlds of faith and industry of the Word Bearers, deep in the Maelstrom.