He held his arms out wide to receive the praise of the Host, a rapturous smile upon his upturned face. He glided down until he was hovering just above the heads of the warrior-brothers and his velvet voice swept out before him as he spoke.
'Let the infidel worshippers of the Corpse Emperor witness the power of true gods!' he said, his words carrying easily over the throng of battle, though he seemed barely to raise his voice. 'Show them the power of the warriors of true faith! Let them not defile the sacred monument of the Gehemehnet! Slaughter them with the words of blessed Lorgar upon your lips! Feel the power of the gods surge within you! Kill them, my warriors! The gods hunger for sacrifice!'
The Dark Apostle lowered his defiled crozius arcanum in the direction of the enemy and his daemon pulpit began gliding forwards over the heads of his warriors. The scything daemon rays of Tzeentch screamed ahead of him, weaving deadly patterns and glowing with iridescent light.
The explosions of incoming shells erupted around the Dark Apostle, but he emerged unscathed, protected by a nimbus of light that surrounded him.
As one, the Host of the Word Bearers gave a roar of devotion and hatred, and surged forwards. The Gehemehnet rumbled behind them and Marduk could feel the presence of thousands of daemons struggling to enter the physical realm. Its time was almost upon them.
There was no glory to be had in waiting behind walls for death to come. No, the final battle would be a full attack against the enemy. Havoc squads would hold position upon the fourth tier, but the remainder of the Host was to attack in one powerful wave and engage the enemy in the open.
Marduk lifted his daemon weapon, feeling its power building as the Gehemehnet neared its awakening, and he leapt the barricade.
'Purge them of their heresies!' he roared. 'Death to the followers of the Corpse Emperor!'
The Host surged towards the enemy behind the advance of the slaves, bolters barking. Marduk was pleased to see that many of the slaves picked up weapons from fallen enemy soldiers and put them to use, shooting at their erstwhile allies. Some turned these weapons back to shoot at the Word Bearers, but they were few, and they were clubbed to the ground and murdered by their fellow slaves.
Marduk always found it pleasing to seeing former heathen worshippers of the False Emperor turn to Chaos, embracing the truth and becoming true converts, proselytes of the true Gods. The corruption of the innocent some would say, but he knew that it was something far more worthwhile. He was seeing enlightenment come to those who had been exposed to lies and falsehood for their entire lives. It was liberation and it was salvation.
The daemonic war engines that the slaves were chained to bellowed and roared as they clawed up the earth beneath them and filled the air with sprays of shells, flame and missiles. They smashed into the enemy foot soldiers and began ripping them apart and crushing them beneath their weight. Hundreds of slaves were injured as they were dragged into the fray and their chains snapped tight between the machines, entangling them with the foe.
The Host followed closely, firing into the mayhem, not caring who they killed. Thousands dropped beneath the roar of bolters, and as chains were driven into the ground and snapped, the Host broke into a run. They fell amongst the slaves and enemy, hacking and cutting with chainaxes and swords, bludgeoning with bolters and burning with roaring flamers.
Marduk saw Jarulek enter battle ahead of him, shooting down from his floating pulpit with a monstrous, daemon-bolter that caused hideous mutations in those it struck. The screaming daemons of Tzeentch scythed through the enemy, their razor-edged forms cutting limbs from bodies and cleaving through heads. The smaller daemons whirled around the Dark Apostle, eviscerating anything that came close.
Marduk saw a warrior raise a hand to hurl a grenade at the Dark Apostle, but his forearm was cleanly severed as he pulled it back for the throw. It fell to the ground as his feet. Marduk laughed as he saw the look of frantic panic on the man's face before he was hurled through the air by the force of the explosion. A pair of screaming ray-daemons cut through the air and sliced into the flailing body as if playing with a new toy and he fell to the ground in pieces.
Give them a taste of the power of Chaos that will soon come, said the voice of Jarulek.
Marduk fired his bolt pistol into the face of an enemy as he formed the complex words of a passage from the Enumeration of Convocation, an inspired work that blessed Erebus had crafted in the language of the daemon. He spoke the difficult words easily, his chainsword hacking into flesh and his bolt pistol blasting through bone.
A searing beam of white-blue energy from a Skitarii weapon caused the flesh and blood of several Word Bearers to boil within their power armour, and Marduk rolled to the side as the beam swept towards him, almost stumbling over the words of the complex enumeration. The results of such a slip could be catastrophic, but he picked up the incantation smoothly once again as he rolled to his feet, cleaving his weapon across the throat of another foe.
He barked out the guttural words of the enumeration, feeling the power of Chaos building, tapping into the excessive amounts of energy waiting to be released. Burias-Drak'shal's horned head lifted as the possessed warrior crouched over a kill, nostrils flaring as it scented the build-up of warp energy.
With a wave of his chainsword, Marduk ordered the warriors around him to form a circle, with him as its centre. The power armoured Chaos Marines of the Legion planted their feet, facing outwards, mowing down any that drew near their First Acolyte.
Burias-Drak'shal stalked through the maelstrom of battle. His whole posture was altered once the change had taken him. From a tall, proud and graceful warrior, he became a hulking, stooped, feral creature that oozed power and barely suppressed rage. He roughly shoved a Word Bearers warrior-brother out of his way to take his place beside the First Acolyte, who was drawing near the end of the enumeration, and planted his icon firmly into the ground.
Reaching out with one hand, Marduk gripped the icon, directing the building power of Chaos through its black metal. He gripped the icon tightly and closed his eyes, still speaking in the contorting language of the warp. When he opened his eyes they were as black as pitch.
He barked the last words of the enumeration and, in the moment of silence that followed, he and Burias-Drak'shal raised the icon high before slamming its butt down into the ground, steam rising from where it touched the earth.
The air around the icon shimmered as if with the heat of a star-engine and the long, spiked haft began to vibrate. A swirling vortex of darkness suddenly opened, and the surrounding air was sucked towards it. The kathartes screamed into reality from within the portal. Scores of them hurtled up into the sky from the rift in real space.
Their exposed muscles were slick with blood and they beat their powerful, flayed wings as they coiled overhead before descending upon the battlefield. They plummeted into the Elysians, talons curled forwards like those of an attacking bird of prey, hooking and ripping into flesh. Some men were grasped by the shoulders and lifted into the air before other kathartes screamed into them, ripping at them and squabbling over the pickings. Guardsmen were torn apart as the kathartes fought, and Marduk could feel the rising terror and fear of the soldiers, their resolve wavering.
'Fear not the devils! Faith in the Emperor will protect your souls!' came a shout from a leather-clad individual with wide, mad eyes and Marduk laughed at his folly. The man screamed an oath to the Emperor and shot down one of the katharte daemons. The shot broke one of its wings and it fell into the crush of men.
Marduk roared and leapt towards the figure, smashing aside those in his path, but the black-clad commissar was lost amongst the melee. Marduk swore in anger and continued to slaughter those around him.