“Override of genetic coding documented. Bio-gene-splicing observed. Conclusion: Corporaptor
Hominis overrides genetic makeup of host species, dominating upper cerebral cortex functions.
Speculation: Corporaptor Hominis a vanguard species, locating and suppressing indigenous
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populations. Genetic corruption of local species suspected as a method of drawing Hive Fleet to
suitable prey-worlds.”
The three Word Bearers looked blankly at the corrupted magos.
“Potential reversal of implanted host species’ gene-corruption: nil,” concluded Darioq-
Grendh’al.
“Gene-corruption,” murmured Marduk.
“The machine babbles nonsense,” growled Khalaxis.
“Speak more clearly, Darioq-Drak’shal,” said Marduk, “perhaps in words that we might
understand.”
“It is believed that the genestealers infiltrate potential prey-worlds for the tyranid xenos species
to feed upon,” intoned the magos. “They infect the populace, and some believe that the collective
control they exert over those bearing their genetic coding acts as a psychic beacon, drawing the
organic Hive Fleets to those worlds where the beacon burns strongest.”
“And you say this… implant attack that Rhamel has suffered is altering his genetic coding?”
asked Marduk.
“That is correct, master.”
“The bodies of the warriors of Lorgar are sacred temples, for in them we bear the mark of
Lorgar. From his genome were we created,” said Marduk, “and such a… corruption is an
abomination.”
The First Acolyte looked at Rhamel, who grimaced as another wave of pain shot through him.
“You understand what must be done, Brother Rhamel,” said Marduk. It was a statement, not a
question.
“I understand, my lord,” said Rhamel through gritted teeth, and the warrior dropped to his knees
before the First Acolyte.
“What if the machine is wrong?” asked Khalaxis. “Could not the chirurgeons on the Infidus
Diabolus reverse this corruption?”
“The machine is not wrong, brother,” said Rhamel. “I can feel it working within me, changing
me. Let me pass with honour, my brother.”
The warrior closed his eyes tightly against the pain.
“I would ask that you do it, Khalaxis,” he hissed, pleadingly. “Do this for me, my brother.
Please.”
Khalaxis looked at Marduk, and the First Acolyte nodded his head grimly.
“It is only fitting,” said the First Acolyte.
“As you wish, my brother,” said Khalaxis, moving in front of the kneeling warrior.
Marduk passed the champion of the almost obliterated 17th coterie his bolt pistol, and the taller
warrior took it in his hands with great reverence. Then he raised the bolt pistol and placed it against
Rhamel’s forehead.
“Into the darkness he strode,” quoted Marduk, from the Trials of the Covenant, “into the flames
of hell, with his head held high, and he smiled.”
“Be at peace,” said Khalaxis.
Rhamel smiled, looking up at Khalaxis with eyes shining with belief. “I’ll see you on the other
side, my brother,” he said.
Then the bolt pistol bucked in Khalaxis’s hand, and the back of Rhamel’s head was obliterated,
exploding outwards in a shower of gore.
Marduk dipped a finger in the blood and drew an eight-pointed star on Rhamel’s forehead, the
hole of the entry wound at its centre.
“What was that all about?” Burias asked in a low voice as they climbed into the submersible,
eyeing the brooding Khalaxis.
“Nothing,” said Marduk. “A brave warrior is dead. He will be mourned.”
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A crowd of hooded cultists was waiting for them as the submersible entered the docking pool within
the mining station, pushing in as Burias climbed out onto the wharf. Nevertheless, they kept their
distance, wary of the immense red-armoured warrior and the potent aura of savagery around him.
The icon bearer snarled as he looked upon the press of humanity, and dropped onto the docking
wharf, eyeing the crowd darkly. He allowed the change to come over him and took a menacing step
forwards, enjoying the fear that made the people recoil. They did not run, however, and there were
shouts and jeers from the masses. It was curious behaviour for mortals, and Burias could not
understand it. Lesser beings always reacted to his presence with abject terror, so why did these ones
not flee?
As the other Word Bearers emerged from the deep-sea scout/maintenance vehicle, one man
pushed to the front of the crowd. His pale face was cowled and thin, and a servo-skull hovered near
his shoulder. His eyes gleamed with feverish light.
This man studied the Word Bearers as they disembarked, an expression of outrage upon his face.
The anger twisted his features so that he looked barely human at all.
“They have spilt the blood of our brood-fathers!” he bellowed, holding his arms up high. The
billowing sleeves of his robe fell back at the movement, exposing pale arms pitted with plugs.
Spiralling tattoos covered his flesh, oddly alien embryonic shapes that wrapped around his forearms.
An angry roar rose from the gathered crowd that stepped forwards, faces twisting into visages of
hatred.
“Someone shut him up,” said Marduk.
Kol Badar stepped towards the man, who stood defiant before him even though the people
around him shrunk back from the Coryphaus’s titanic frame.
“You have befouled the inner sanctum of the brood-fathers,” howled the man at Kol Badar as he
approached. He came up barely to the Coryphaus’s chest, but held his ground defiantly. “And for
that grave insult, you will be punished.”
“Who is going to punish me, little man?” asked Kol Badar. “You?”
The man quivered in rage, and with a scream of hatred hurled himself at Kol Badar’s immense
figure, hands outstretched like claws.
Kol Badar wrapped his power talons around the man’s head, and lifted him off his feet, which
kicked uselessly a metre off the ground.
The crowd surged forwards, many drawing laspistols and cudgels from their robes, screaming in
outrage.
Bemused, Kol Badar clenched his fist and there was an audible wet crunch as the man’s skull
was crushed. He hurled the body into the crowd.
There were hundreds of the frenzied cultists, but they were as nothing next to the warriors of the
XVII Legion. None of the Word Bearers deigned to expend any of their precious ammunition upon
the crowd, and they weighed in with chainswords and fists as the crowd surged in to surround them.
It was as if the crowd was in the grip of some kind of group hysteria, thought Marduk,
eliminating all fear, and replacing it with this frenzied hatred. That was exactly what this was, he
realised these people were the dupes of the xenos hive mind.
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The butchery was over in minutes. Bodies lay sprawled across the floor, many of them maimed
and brutalised almost beyond recognition, life fluids smearing the metal flooring with a thick gruel.
Pulling his blood-smeared helmet from his head, Marduk sucked in a deep breath, inhaling the
hot, heady scent of death.
“Glory be,” he said, a rapturous smile upon his face.
Gears groaned as the giant lift rose from the shaft, powerful engines hauling it up the immense chain
connected to the mining station eight kilometres below. It came to a clanking rest, and steam vented
from its engines. The sides of the diamond-shaped lift crashed open, and Sabtec bowed his head as
the First Acolyte stepped from within, his armour caked in blood.
The champion lifted his gaze once more, eyes flicking over the blood-drenched warriors
marching from within the lift. He raised an eyebrow as he saw that only half of the warriors that had
accompanied Marduk returned.
The First Acolyte’s gaze wandered, coming to rest on the corpse of a Legion warrior, lying on
its back and with its arms crossed over his chest.
“Namar-sin?” asked Marduk. Sabtec nodded his head.
“Report,” said Kol Badar as he stalked out of the lift.
“Dark eldar,” said Sabtec, “though ones we have not fought before. They were shadowcreatures,
here and yet not here. Two brother warriors fell along with Namar-sin.”
“I do not see their bodies,” said Marduk.
“They were… taken, my lord,” said Sabtec.
“They were taken,” said Marduk flatly.
Sabtec stood with his head held high, looking resolutely forward.
“Yes, my lord,” he said.
“You allowed two warrior brothers of Lorgar to be taken by eldar slavers?” snarled Kol Badar.
“They were taken while under my command, my lord, yes,” said Sabtec, “and I will accept any
punishment that my shame requires.”
“You offer no excuses, Sabtec?” asked Kol Badar.
“None, my lord,” said Sabtec. His voice betrayed no fear. He moved his gaze towards Marduk.
“If it would please you, First Acolyte, I shall take my own life for the shame I have brought upon
the Host.”
“That will not be necessary, Sabtec,” said Marduk smoothly, “though I am pleased at your
devotion to the great cause. I shall have need of loyal warriors in the days to come.”
“The tyranid invasion could begin at any moment,” said Kol Badar. “It might already be under
way. We move out, now.”
Marduk was left alone with Kol Badar as the warriors of the Legion made ready to move out
once more, their movements crisp and full of purpose.
“This world has claimed many warrior’s lives,” said Kol Badar. “Six Havocs of the 217th,
including their champion, Namar-sin; two warriors of the 13th; six of Khalaxis’s 17th, and two of
my Anointed, all dead to secure the mind of a single mortal. I hope that it was worth it.”
“It will be,” said the First Acolyte.
“For the glory of Marduk?” sneered Kol Badar.
“For the glory of Lorgar. For the glory of the XVII Legion,” said Marduk, keeping his anger in
check, though he felt the powers of Chaos stirring within him, feeding his desire to strike down the
insubordinate Coryphaus.
Thoughts of blood filled his mind, and Marduk reached involuntarily for his blade. He saw Kol
Badar’s power talons twitch. With all his strength, Marduk pushed the hatred deep inside, where it
would fester and grow strong, but where he could control it.
“Lead forth, oh mighty Kol Badar,” said Marduk, his voice thick with sarcasm.
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The Word Bearers moved out onto the ice, leaving the guild city, with its subterranean tunnels and
claustrophobic chambers behind. They had not seen any further sign of the enemy, either Imperial or
eldar. The storms wracking the landscape had not abated. If anything, it seemed that they had
increased in intensity, furiously whipping ice and snow across the flows.
“How long?” asked Marduk. He spoke using his inter-vox rather than attempting to roar over the
howling winds.
“Ten minutes,” said Kol Badar. “Thirteenth, form a perimeter.”
Under Sabtec’s crisp orders, the warriors of the 13th coterie, both old and new members, moved
into position, weapons at the ready. It was probably an unnecessary precaution, for the chance of
attack within the next ten minutes was unlikely, but having heard the reports of the dark eldar
attacks from Sabtec, Kol Badar was taking no chances. Marduk also knew that it did the warriors
good to have a duty, something to occupy them.
“The only certainty in a warrior’s life is death,” was an old adage, though Marduk knew that
such a statement was inherently false. For mortals, yes, death came for every soul eventually, but for
one of the blessed warriors of Chaos, death was no certainty. Likely, but not certain. One could
always be raised to daemonhood, and then one might live for all eternity, a demi-god worshipped in
one’s own right.
Something stirred within Marduk, and he felt the presence of Chaos writhing within him. He had
long become used to the bizarre sensation, and it gave him comfort to know that he was not alone.
“Incoming!” roared Sabtec suddenly, his crusade-era helmet angled skywards.
There came a whistling sound overhead, and the warriors scattered as something large came
hurtling down through the gale.
Marduk threw himself to the side as it came smashing down and struck the moon’s surface just
metres away, sending snow and chunks of ice flying into the air, and sending warriors of the Legion
sprawling. The First Acolyte rolled smoothly, coming up to one knee with his bolt pistol in his hand.
Had it been an explosive shell, he would be dead, but the thing that had struck the ice was no
shell, nor was it an orbital strike… at least not one of Imperial origins.
At first, Marduk thought it was an asteroid, but now he saw it was something fleshy, something
organic.
It was like the giant seed-pod of some fleshy fruit, and it had smashed a crater four metres deep
and eight metres in diameter. Steam rose from it, and even as he watched, the tip of the roughly
spherical shape peeled back, flopping down onto the ice, revealing a shapeless, quivering skin-sac
the size of a Dreadnought.
Veins branched across this lump of living flesh, and shapes within strained to be released.
“What in the name of the true gods is that?” asked Burias curiously, stepping carefully towards
the pulsating shape.
“Careful, icon bearer,” said Kol Badar.
The skin of the shape bulged and Marduk could make out the shape of a xenos head straining to
escape.
“Tyranid,” he hissed, just as the first of the hive creatures burst from its embryonic birth sack.
The death of the world has arrived, he thought.
Claws ripped through the film of skin and foul waters empted from within, bio-fluids gushing
out. Clouds of fog rose as the warm liquid melted through ice and snow.
Bolters began to fire, tearing gaping rents in the sac that gushed hot liquid. These amniotic fluids
were pinkish and thick, like glutinous syrup. Inhuman screams burst from the spore as the bolts
ripped through it.
Then the first of the creatures leapt from within, launching itself directly at Burias, four slender,
bladed limbs poised to impale him. The blades of its two fore-limbs were the length of swords, and
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though the creature was smaller than the genestealers they had encountered in the hulk on the ocean
floor, the similarities were marked.
Burias swatted the creature aside with the holy icon of the Host, breaking its back, and it slid
through the ice and snow, carving a furrow, until it came to a halt at Kol Badar’s feet. It snarled up
at the Coryphaus, struggling to stand on its powerful hind legs, which would not respond. It hissed,
and tried to stab at Kol Badar, but the Coryphaus planted a bolt in its head that ended its struggles.
