mortal man, and the other, one of the last members of Khalaxis’s coterie, had half his face ripped
off. He stoically continued on, hurling aside his sundered helmet and gritting his teeth, refusing to
succumb to the pain in front of such vaunted warriors as his champion, the Coryphaus and the First
Acolyte. Marduk had nodded his respect to the warrior, who had puffed out his chest and struggled
on, pushing through the pain, at the unexpected acknowledgement.
They had not encountered any enemy for more than fifteen minutes, and they picked up the pace
as they closed on the location of the submersibles, keeping a wary eye on the throbbing blister
screen of their tainted auspex.
The Flames of Perdition shifted suddenly, the prow of the massive ship dropping as it tore loose
from the submerged cliff. The entire ship tilted, and Marduk lost his footing as the floor tipped
beneath him.
The Word Bearers were thrown to their left, smashing into the side wall of the passage as the
immense freighter lurched. One of them tumbled down a side-corridor that was more like a vertical
shaft, fingers scrabbling vainly for purchase. Marduk flailed for a handhold amidst the piping on the
left wall, but found none, and began to slide down the corridor-shaft behind the power-armoured
brother Space Marine.
Burias-Drak’shal held out his icon, his other hand grasping onto a side-rail as other Word
Bearers tumbled past. Marduk reached and grabbed the proffered icon, fingers locking around its
barbed haft, and Burias-Drak’shal hauled him to safety. With a nod of thanks, Marduk pulled his
body over the lip of the shaft, dragging himself forward on his belly.
The ship rolled onto its side, its nose still tipping, before it finally came to rest, settling into its
new position.
Outside, rocks dislodged from the chasm walls by the immense weight of the freighter dropped
down into the abyss, tumbling down into the darkness.
“Who have we lost?” growled Kol Badar, picking himself up from the ground, ripping his power
talons from the wall, which had been the ceiling.
“Darioq-Grendh’al?” said Marduk in concern.
“He’s here,” said Burias, pushing the daemon back within him as he picked himself up.
The corrupted magos’s mechadendrites had shot outwards, clamping to walls like the legs of a
spider, halting his fall.
“Rhamel is gone,” growled Khalaxis.
“Is he the only one?” asked Marduk.
“Yes,” said Kol Badar, looking around, “but the ship could fall at any moment. We have to get
out of here.”
“Where is he?” asked Marduk, looking down over the lip of the corridor-shaft. It extended some
fifty metres before disappearing into the gloom that even his augmented sight could not penetrate.
Khalaxis cursed. “The auspex is gone,” he said.
“Brother Rhamel?” asked Kol Badar through the inter-vox.
A static-filled voice came back, though it was distorted and patchy.
“…amel… broken arm… faulty…” came the response.
“His vox is damaged,” said Marduk.
“He is not getting up there with a broken arm,” said Burias, assessing the climb. “You want me
to go get him?”
“We don’t have the time,” snapped Kol Badar.
Burias looked over at Marduk, who reluctantly nodded his head in agreement. Khalaxis stared
down the vertical corridor, his hands clenched around the hilt of his chainaxe. Rhamel was
Khalaxis’s blood-brother, having come from the same cult-gang on Colchis before the hated
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Ultramarines’ cyclonic torpedoes had destroyed the Word Bearers’ home world ten thousand years
earlier. Together, they had been amongst the last batch of aspirants taken from the obliterated world.
“Brother Rhamel,” said Kol Badar, “proceed to the rendezvous point. We will meet you there.
Repeat, proceed to the rendezvous point.”
“…cknowledged… phaus,” came the stilted reply.
“Come,” said Kol Badar to the rest of the dwindling group of warrior brothers. “If he makes it,
he makes it. If not, then it is the will of the gods,” he said mockingly, with a nod towards Marduk.
Khalaxis stood stone still, looking down into the darkness.
“May the gods be with you, my brother,” said Khalaxis, before turning away.
The Word Bearers renewed their advance. With the ship on its side, the way they had come was
foreign. What had been familiar was now strange, and where before they had advanced easily, they
were now forced to half-climb through doorways that were horizontal, and half-leap across vertical
corridors shafts that fell away below them.
The power-armoured warrior brothers leapt these expanses with ease, but the progress was not
so easy for the bulky Terminator-armoured Anointed warriors, and Marduk ground his sharp teeth in
frustration at their slow progress, drawing blood.
Burias ripped a pair of thick support girders from the walls, and dropped them over one of the
expanses, and Kol Badar and his Anointed shuffled across them, though the girders strained beneath
their weight.
Last to come was Darioq-Grendh’al, and Marduk swore.
“They will not take his weight,” hissed Kol Badar.
The corrupted magos, with his full servo-harness and plasma-core generator attached to his
back, weighed almost twice as much as one of the Terminator-armoured Anointed warriors, and
Marduk swore again, knowing that the Coryphaus was correct.
“We’ll have to find another way round,” said Marduk, his voice terse with frustration.
“Wait,” said Burias, a smile playing on his lean face.
Marduk looked up to see the magos traversing the gap, his mechanical legs hanging beneath him
in midair. Half-mechanical, half-fleshy mechadendrite tentacles punched through the panels in the
ceiling, gripping tight as the corrupted magos’s four immense servo-arms extended out to either side
at full stretch, gripping the girders there. With a surprised barking laugh, Marduk watched as two of
the servo-arms released their grips and reached forwards to grasp the girders further along, before
releasing its other arms, and repeating the manoeuvre. Mechadendrites pulled free overhead before
punching through the ceiling panels further along.
It was like watching some multi-armed, mechanical ape making its way through the treetops,
and even Kol Badar was taken aback by the bizarre spectacle. The magos lowered himself safely to
the floor once more, his daemon-eye glinting.
“Full of surprises,” said Marduk.
In the distance, they heard the percussive echoes of boltgun fire, and knew that the enemy had
found Brother Rhamel. Khalaxis was tense and brooding, and the other warriors kept a respectful
distance from the champion.
Marduk patted Khalaxis on the shoulder, and the Word Bearers pressed on in silence.
Brother Rhamel pumped shot after shot into the never-ending swarm of genestealers coming at him.
He had five confirmed kills, the bodies of the xenos creatures lying motionless on the ground, but
they were coming at him from two directions, and he knew that it was just a matter of time before
they overwhelmed him. The red icon warning him of low ammunition had been flashing before his
eyes for some time, and he watched with grim finality as the icons displaying his last rounds were
slowly depleted.
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His left arm hung useless at his side, broken in three places. Turning to the left, he shot another
genestealer in the head, before swinging back to the right and taking another one high in the chest,
the percussive blast hurling it backwards.
Squeezing the trigger once more, he fired the last of his bolts, and dropped his useless weapon to
the ground. He tossed the last of his frag grenades down one of the corridors, turning his back to the
resultant blast and unslinging his heavy blade from his waist.
The blast of the grenade knocked him forwards a step as flame rolled up the corridor at his back.
Steadying himself, he passed the wide blade before him, knowing that the end was near.
A handful of genestealers were stalking towards him, their backs hunched and their eyes
glittering hatefully. They moved slowly, readying to pounce, as if knowing that their prey was all
but defenceless.
“Come on, you whoresons!” Rhamel roared as a fresh batch of combat drugs was injected into
his body.
One of the xenos creatures hissed in response, ropes of saliva dripping from its fangs. Feeling
movement behind him, Rhamel flicked a glance around, and saw another half a dozen of the
genestealers creeping forwards at his flank.
“Come on! Finish me!” Rhamel bellowed, keeping both groups of aliens in his field of vision.
At some unspoken command, both groups leapt forwards, covering the distance with horrifying
speed.
Rhamel swung in towards the first creature, his blade biting deep into its snarling face, cracking
its skull. The genestealer wrenched its head to the side, almost dragging the blade from Rhamel’s
hand, but the Word Bearer ripped his sword clear and stabbed it into the open mouth of another
genestealer as it lunged towards him.
He buried the blade deep in the creature’s throat, and hot xenos blood bubbled from the wound.
He had no time to drag his sword clear, however, before he was overwhelmed. He was smashed to
the ground, losing his grip on his weapon, and he bellowed at the pain that shot through his broken
arm.
Gritting his teeth, murmuring a final prayer to the gods of the ether, he waited for the killing
blow to fall. It never came.
One of the creatures was crouching over him, pinning him to the floor. Rhamel strained within
its grasp, powerless against its strength. Its hot breath fogged the eye lenses of his helmet.
“Do it,” he roared in the genestealer’s face. “Kill me!”
The alien leant forward and a thick rope of drool dripped from its maw onto Rhamel’s helmet.
With a darting movement, the xenos creature stabbed its tongue towards his neck. The powerful
proboscis punched through his armour and sank into his neck. It stung painfully, and Rhamel roared.
Then the creature pushed off him, scuttling backwards.
Rhamel staggered to his feet, scrabbling for his blade. He stood in a fighting crouch, ready for
the creatures to revert back to their murderous nature and come at him once more, to rend him limb
from limb, but they continued to back away from him, slipping into the darkness.
In an instant, they were gone, and Rhamel was left alone.
His vision swam, and the throbbing pain of his neck wound made him wince. He presumed that
his body’s enhanced metabolism was working hard to overcome whatever foul poison had been
injected into him, and he fought the sudden lethargy that assailed him.
Whatever had been done to him, he felt certain that his enhanced metabolism would combat it.
No poison could kill one of the Legion, and he was confident that the discomfort he was feeling
would pass with time.
Giving no more thought to the genestealer’s bizarre behaviour, Rhamel set off, loping down the
eerily silent corridors at a kilometre-eating pace, working his way towards the rendezvous point.
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Marduk heard the distant gunfire cease abruptly.
“He has become one with Chaos,” he said to Khalaxis, whose anger was palpable. “He was a
fine warrior. Honour his memory.”
Khalaxis nodded his head, though his anger still seethed within him like a living thing.
It took them the better part of an hour to reach the submersibles, for they were forced to take a
different path than they had travelled before, clambering up steep inclines, sliding down others, and
navigating vertical shafts.
The holding deck where they had left the submersibles had been tipped onto its side when the
ship had slipped, and the interior was only vaguely familiar. Only the bobbing shapes of the
submersibles confirmed that they had reached their goal, though the aquatic vessels had been tossed
around when the ship had shifted. One of them was stranded out of the water, like a beached deepsea
mammal, lying on its side on a gantry that had buckled beneath its weight.
With a clipped order, Kol Badar sent Burias clambering over the wreckage, and he leapt into the
air to grab a ladder that was positioned horizontally above them. The icon bearer climbed hand over
hand across the expanse of dark water before dropping down onto the top of one of the
submersibles. He landed in a steady crouch, and grinned across the open water towards the others
before unscrewing its top hatch and dropping down into its interior.
Within moments, Burias had powered the vessel to life, its twin spotlights piercing the dark
water like a pair of glowing eyes, and manoeuvred it towards the waiting warriors of the Host, its
impeller engines creating a whirlpool of turbulence.
One by one, the warriors stepped onto the submersible, clambering into its belly, until just
Marduk, Khalaxis and Darioq-Grendh’al remained.
“You next,” said Marduk, nodding towards the corrupted magos.
“A biological entity approaches,” said Darioq-Grendh’al, and both Marduk and Khalaxis were
instantly alert, weapons raised as they sought a target.
“I see nothing,” hissed Khalaxis.
“There,” said Marduk, nodding towards a darkened side-passage. His finger tensed on the trigger
of his bolt pistol, before he relaxed and holstered the weapon.
A shape solidified out of the darkness, staggering towards them.
“Rhamel,” laughed Khalaxis, “you whoreson! You had me worried for a moment there.”
“Fine, brother,” replied Rhamel, his voice strained. “I don’t die easily.”
Khalaxis laughed and slapped his blood-brother on the shoulder, knocking him forward a step.
“Are you well, warrior brother?” asked Marduk, eyes narrowing.
“I will be fine, First Acolyte,” Rhamel replied fiercely.
“Remove your helmet, warrior of Lorgar,” commanded Marduk.
Rhamel pulled his helmet clear, standing to attention before the First Acolyte. The flesh of his
broad, ritually scarred face was pale and waxy, and deep rings circled eyes that glinted with a
feverish light. A scabbed wound was located on his neck, and the skin around the puncture was
tinged vaguely blue.
“You are… unwell?” asked Marduk. “Poison?”
“Ovipositor impregnation,” intoned Darioq-Grendh’al.
“What is the machine speaking of?” asked Khalaxis.
“I don’t know,” replied Marduk.
“Source: Magos Biologis Atticus Fane, Lectures of Xenos Bioligae, 872.M40, Consultation of
Nicae, Tenebria, Q.389.V.IX. Ref.MBim274.ch.impttck. The xenos subject species, genus
Corporaptor, observed implanting gene-template into body of host,” said Darioq-Grendh’al.
