The melta-bombs detonated, and the metre-thick gates buckled inwards. The force of the superheated
explosions was directed inwards, searing through the reinforced metal barrier. It was not
fully breached, but as he lowered the arm that shielded his face, Marduk recognised instantly that its
integrity was compromised.
“Twenty seconds,” said Kol Badar’s voice in Marduk’s helmet.
Lascannons fired from the blinding gale, and then the dark shadow of the first Land Raider
could be seen, driving at speed for the gatehouse. An explosion slammed into the ice beside the
behemoth, knocking it to the side, and for a second its left-hand tracks lifted, spinning wildly before
it slammed back on the ground and corrected its angle of approach.
Marduk moved to the side, his back to a rockcrete support buttress, as the immense Land Raider
gunned its engines. Its ancient hide was inscribed with passages from the books of Chaos, and
symbols of devotion and allegiance marred its clotted-blood coloured armour plates. Autocannon
rounds ricocheted off the Land Raider, unable to penetrate, and heavy bolter rounds were deflected
off its angled plates. Its side sponsons lit up the darkness as they stabbed into the gates, further
weakening them, and Marduk pressed himself backwards so as not to be struck by the monstrous
battle tank as it dropped down the incline towards the entrance to the bastion.
It slammed into the weakened gates with the force of a battering ram, and they collapsed
inwards. Another Land Raider bedecked with chains from which severed heads and limbs hung
followed the first, its daemon-headed exhausts spewing black smoke as it roared down the incline
and into the belly of the bastion, followed by the third. The last of the Land Raiders would hold
position, scanning for any sign of the enemy out on the plain. With the enemy bastion breached, the
heavy weapons toting Havocs of the 217th coterie pulled back towards the Land Raider, as per Kol
Badar’s orders, though their champion Namar-sin was to enter the bastion alongside the First
Acolyte.
As the third Land Raider roared past, Marduk broke into a run behind it, using it as moving
cover. He drew his chainsword as he ran, and felt the impatience of the daemon Borhg’ash within
the daemon weapon.
Already he could hear the sounds of gunfire, the hiss of lasguns and the whine as they repowered,
and the deep percussive boom of heavy bolter fire.
The ramp descended into the interior of the bastion, which had been carved into the solid rock.
The interior was not unlike the hangar deck of the Infidus Diabolus, with high ceilings and various
levels and gantries running around its walls. Around thirty APCs, light scout vehicles and a couple
of heavier tanks, all armoured in the same uniform white plates, were lined up in serried ranks, and
white-armoured soldiers were running forwards. Officers were shouting, and men were running in
from portals in the north and south. Others were taking up positions upon the gantries lining the
walls, firing down at the Word Bearers.
The two Land Raiders had ground to a halt, heavy-bolters built into their hulls pumping
explosive rounds into the enemy, ripping men apart in bloody detonations. The frontal assault ramps
slammed down onto the rockcrete floor, and the bulky forms of the warriors of the Host appeared
from the red-lit interiors, smoke billowing around them.
Kol Badar strode from the lead Land Raider, his face hidden beneath his quad-tusked helmet and
fire spitting from the barrels of his archaic combi-bolter. The Coryphaus roared, the daemonic sound
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resounding from vox-grills as he cut a white-armoured man in half with bolter fire. Behind him, the
four warriors of the Anointed, the warrior elite of the Host, stalked forwards heavily. The servos of
their ancient Terminator armour hissed and vented steam as the Anointed advanced from the interior
of the battle tank, their weapons roaring.
Sabtec and Khalaxis emerged from the other Land Raiders, leading their respective coteries. The
13th instantly took cover, bolters spitting death as they coolly split into two teams and manoeuvred
into good firing positions. As Sabtec’s warriors laid down their hail of suppressing fire, Khalaxis
and his 17th coterie disdained any attempt to seek cover, and raced headlong towards the enemy,
revving the motors of their chainblades and snapping off shots with their pistols.
A portal lifted beside Marduk, and he swung his bolt pistol around and fired. A troop of whitearmoured
soldiers ran at him, and his first rounds took one of them in the chest. He fell with a
strangled cry as his ribcage was shattered. A second enemy dropped as his head exploded, and
Marduk pumped another pair of shots into the body of a third warrior.
The soldiers halted, those in front dropping to one knee as they raised their lasguns. Others
sought cover against the pipes protruding into the corridor, and they fired as their sergeant shouted
an order.
Las-rounds impacted with Marduk’s chest and shoulder pads, knocking him back half a step.
They left blackened scorch marks on his armoured plates, and Marduk snarled in fury as he leapt
forwards, his chainsword roaring.
More las-rounds pinged off his armour as he closed the distance, and he began to recite the
Litanies of Hate and Vengeance, barking the words like a mantra. Several of the enemy soldiers
baulked and stumbled back from his charge as his vox-enhanced voice made their eardrums bleed.
Marduk blew the arm off one of them with his bolt pistol fired at close range, and then he was
amongst them.
His chainsword hacked into the neck of the first, teeth biting through armour, flesh and bone,
and hot blood splashed across Marduk’s tabard. Blood ran down the feeder grooves carved into the
sides of the chainsword and was sucked into the internals of the weapon, and Marduk felt fresh
power and strength flow through him as the daemon Borhg’ash fed. Veins pulsed along the length of
the ancient weapon, and the daemon urged Marduk on to feed it further.
He dropped to one knee, and a las-bolt seared above him where his head had been a fraction of a
second earlier. He hacked out again, cutting through another soldier’s leg, the bone ripped apart by
Borhg’ash’s eager teeth. He fired his bolt pistol, and another enemy was slammed backwards into its
comrades as the back of its head exploded outwards.
Brother Namar-sin was at Marduk’s side, and he buried his axe in the chest of another of the
soldiers, the pain of his severed arm lending him additional strength and fervour. He planted his
boot on the chest of the man and ripped his axe free, kicking the soldier to the ground. He hacked
his axe into another man, severing his arm and cutting half way through his torso.
Another warrior of Namar-sin’s 217th fired his bolter at point blank range, blasting the soldiers
back, chunks of flesh and blood spraying in all directions. One man, his lifeblood running from his
wounds, was on his knees before the warrior brother, and his skull was pulverised by the butt of a
bolter.
Marduk continued reciting from the Litanies of Hate and Vengeance and rammed his
chainsword into the gut of another enemy. The whirring, barbed links of the weapon ripped the
soldier in two, cutting off his pitiful cries of agony.
Borhg’ash was gorged with blood, and it leaked from the internals of the chainsword like a
syrup, but the daemon still hungered for more. Marduk felt the sentience within the chainsword
urging him to kill again, and he gladly indulged its will.
Having emptied his bolt pistol clip, he holstered the weapon as he hacked a lasgun being
levelled at him in two with a backhand sweep of his chainsword. The sparking halves of the lasgun
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were ripped from the terrified soldier’s hands, and as he staggered backwards in shock, Marduk
cleaved him from shoulder to hip with a powerful two-handed blow with his chainsword.
There were no more living threats, and Borhg’ash revved its engine, expressing its desire for
more blood. Seeing one soldier on the ground still living, though he was dying fast as his blood
pumped from his severed leg, Marduk reversed his grip on his chainsword and drove it downwards
into the man. The soldier shuddered as the sharp teeth of the weapon ripped apart his flesh, and
Borhg’ash greedily sucked up the gore.
Marduk loaded a fresh sickle-clip into his bolt pistol as he marched back out onto the main
concourse. A frantic gun battle was still underway, with enemy soldiers high up on gantries sniping
down at the Word Bearers below. Scores of white-armoured men were lying dead or dying
throughout the area, some crawling vainly for the futile safety of cover.
Sabtec’s 13th coterie was taking cover behind the bulk of the Land Raiders, positioned at
corners and snapping off beams at the enemy soldiers. Lasgun shots impacted uselessly against the
armoured hulls of the massive vehicles, and those few Word Bearers that were struck shrugged off
the las-fire as if they were irritating mosquito bites.
One of the 13th dropped to one knee, aiming his stubby, daemon-headed missile launcher up
high, and smoke billowed out the back of the missile tube as he fired. The missile screamed upwards
and struck the underside of one of the gantries where a cluster of snipers was positioned, exploding
in a billowing cloud of flame. The flesh of the soldiers was sliced apart as super-heated fragments of
metal lacerated them, and the metal grid gave way. Those not killed by the explosion dropped ten
metres to the next level of gantries, and were crushed as metal bracings were wrenched out of shape
and pulled down in their wake.
Khalaxis and his warriors stormed across the gantries, unstoppable juggernauts of muscle and
power armour that smashed through the enemy, throwing them over railings to fall fifteen metres to
the ground, hacking limbs from bodies with sweeps of chainswords and killing everything in their
path.
Three of the light armoured vehicles of the enemy were thrown upwards as a lascannon ignited
fuel cells, and a mushroom of fierce orange flame billowed upwards, black, oily smoke licking at its
edges. One of the vehicles spun end over end and slammed into a wall, while the other two came
crushing down onto other unmanned vehicles behind which more enemy soldiers were hunkered
down. They staggered back away from the inferno, and were dutifully gunned down by concentrated
bolter fire.
Kol Badar strode through the firefight snapping off shots with his combi-bolter, his entourage of
Anointed warriors walking steadily alongside him. They eschewed any attempt to take cover, the
ancient, ceramite and adamantium plates of their Terminator armour offering them more protection
than rockcrete or steel.
One of the Anointed swung the heavy twin barrels of his reaper autocannon before him like a
scythe, laying down a withering hail of high-calibre fire that ripped everything apart
indiscriminately: armour, men, vehicles and rockcrete.
A body landed in front of Marduk, having been hurled from a gantry above. The soldier’s helmet
was smashed, and his eyes stared blankly up at the First Acolyte. Marduk kicked the man in the
head, splashing blood and brain matter across the floor.
More enemy soldiers were appearing, assailing the Word Bearers from all directions. They were
caught in the middle of a crossfire, but were cutting the enemy down ruthlessly. Marduk saw that
two Word Bearers had fallen, though their injuries were not mortal and they continued to fight on.
At least fifty enemy soldiers had been slain, and the casualties were mounting.
Under Kol Badar’s direction, Sabtec’s 13th began advancing up through the hail of fire towards
the gantries, while the Anointed laid down a hail of fire that kept the enemy’s heads down. The
Land Raiders pivoted on the spot, their lascannons destroying everything they targeted, and their
heavy bolters ripping paths across the rock walls as they chased the enemy soldiers.
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Marduk raced up a steel staircase, taking the steps four at a time. A las-blast struck him in the
head, scorching his pristine alabaster skull helmet, and he snapped off a shot with his pistol in
response, sending a man flying five metres backwards, a crater exploding from his back.
The enemy officers were shouting their commands, frantically attempting to rally their men and
reposition them in the face of the relentless advance of the Word Bearers, but they were panicking,
and their orders were not followed. Men crawled backwards, attempting to find any place to hide
from the unholy fallen angels of death stalking towards them, firing off hasty shots with lasguns.
Marduk stomped onto one of the gantries and shot down two men, their blood misting the air.
With a kick, he smashed aside a stand of barrels behind which three men were taking cover, and
gunned the first two down. The other was torn apart by a concentrated burst of bolter fire from
below, and Marduk moved on, his pistol raised before him as he fired more shots into the enemy
arranged along the gantry.
One of the white-armoured soldiers raised a melta-gun, and Marduk threw himself against the
wall as the weapon fired. It scorched across his left shoulder pad, and warning symbols appeared
within his helmet display. Namar-sin, coming up behind Marduk, hurled his axe, the weapon
spinning end over end and slamming into the soldier, cleaving into his face and embedding itself
deep in his skull.
Men screamed in agony as they were engulfed in flame, as Khalaxis’s 17th coterie advanced
opposite Marduk, trapping a score of soldiers on the gantry between them. The flamer roared again,
and fire consumed half a dozen men, their flesh blistering as it burned. Several fell over the railing,
plummeting to the floor where they smouldered and lay still. The survivors were hacked apart as
Khalaxis led the charge into their midst, his chainaxe screaming as it tore through bone and tendon.
Marduk waded into the terrified soldiers from the other side, clubbing men to the ground and
executing them without mercy.
Less than five minutes after the bastion gates had been breached, the echo of gunfire ceased. The
Word Bearers moved among the enemy soldiers, dispatching any who still breathed with swift
blows to the head.
Marduk came across one of the officers, his face awash with blood and his breath coming in
