sense my growing favour. Tell me that you cannot.”
Kol Badar clenched his jaw, his eyes blazing with fury, but he did not speak. Marduk laughed
softly.
“You do sense it then,” he said, as the Coryphaus stalked past him. Kol Badar barged his
shoulder into Marduk as he passed, knocking the smaller man aside, but Marduk merely laughed
again.
The Coryphaus turned at the doorway.
“Maybe you could trick the council,” he said, “but you have to make it there alive first.”
The armoured nose of the Idolator glowed red hot as the ship screamed down towards the surface of
Perdus Skylla.
“Unto those who in ignorance and stubbornness refuse the Word, bring the fires of hell. Sunder
their flesh, and burn them of their impurity. Take vengeance upon them for their failings, and teach
them the weakness of their false idols,” roared Marduk, the vox-amplifiers built into his skull-faced
helmet booming his words through the enclosed space of the transport. “Thus spoke Lorgar, and so
it shall be done. Open their veins that the truth might enter them. Cut upon them and let their blood
35
flow. With holy bolter and chainsword we shall slaughter the unbelievers, and usher the word of
truth into the world!”
Strapped into their harness restraints, the warriors of the Host roared their approval as the Gforces
assailed them, the words of their holy leader fuelling their hatred and religious fervour.
“No mercy, no remorse,” barked Marduk. “Such things are for weaklings. We are the faithful,
Lorgar’s chosen! None shall stand against us. Give praise to the gods of Chaos as you kill. Death
will be our herald, and all who look upon us will know fear.”
The Idolater broke through the upper atmosphere of Perdus Skylla, streaking down through the
darkness like a fiery comet from the heavens.
“Let us pray, brothers of the Host, and let the gods bear witness to our eulogies and bless us with
their holy strength,” bellowed Marduk. “Great powers of the warp, guide the arms of your servants
that they might let the blood of your enemies in your honour. Gird us with the strength and fortitude
to do your bidding, and let our faith protect us from the blows of the faithless. Let your dark light
shine upon us, filling us with purpose and belief. With thanks, we give ourselves unto you, pledging
body and soul to your glory, for now and for time immaterial. Glory be.”
“Glory be,” came the response from the warriors of the Host, led by Kol Badar.
“And unto those who would do harm to your faithful servants,” said Marduk, locking eyes with
Kol Badar, “bring an eternity of torment and pain.”
The Idolator continued its descent until, after several minutes, the relentless g-forces began to
ease and the transport started to level out. Flying low, it screamed across the frozen wasteland,
kicking up a great turbulence of snow and ice in its wake. Powerful winds rocked the transport,
jolting its occupants from side to side, as it roared into the face of a fierce ice storm. Sudden drops
in pressure and blasts of wind made the Idolator rise and fall by ten metres at a time, threatening to
slam the ship into the ice crust at any moment.
Marduk grinned fiercely, exposing sharpened teeth. Adrenaline pumped through his system.
Kol Badar had plotted the approach course that the Idolator was now following with keen
tactical acumen. They had entered the atmosphere along the equatorial belt of the moon, four
thousand kilometres from the closest Imperial listening post, and they were now approaching the
northern polar cap on the lee side of the moon, under the cover of darkness. The Imperials were
based solely at the extreme northern and southern tips of the moon, where they had mining colonies,
starports and fortress bastions. Immense defence lasers protected these settlements, each of which
Kol Badar had estimated consisted of between eight and twelve million people, living beneath the
ice.
Virtually nothing lived on the surface, its conditions too severe to maintain life or even any
permanent structures other than the bastions. Even the starports were carved into the ice. Reinforced
titanium roof structures covered the circular starports, protecting them and the vessels within from
the harshest of weather conditions, and those roofs would open like the petals of a flower to allow
transport vessels and freighters to dock.
From the information garnered from the Adeptus Mechanicus archive on Kharion IV, the most
recent location of the explorator who held the secrets of the device had been ascertained, and it was
towards this bastion station that the Idolator was bound.
They would get as close as they were able to the Imperial bastion, flying low across the
windswept landscape and using the sweep-jamming ice storms to conceal their approach. Kol Badar
had factored in the swirling eddies of low pressure, continent sized cyclones that wracked the empty
wasteland, in order to further conceal their approach, though he had loudly voiced his displeasure at
such subterfuge.
Regardless of the Coryphaus’s misgivings, Marduk could not fault Kol Badar’s execution. They
would be upon the bastion long before their presence was known, and it would be a simple matter of
breaching its defences and locating the custodian. The portents had boded well, and Marduk felt
assured that it would be a simple undertaking.
36
He freed the restraints that locked him to his seat, and stood up, easily compensating for the roll
of the transport as it was buffeted by howling winds. Stretching out his shoulders, his gaze wandered
up the rows of seated Word Bearers, assessing them each in turn.
Khalaxis’s teeth were bared, his aggressive nature mirrored in the expressions of his members of
the 17th coterie. He jerked his head to the side, flicking his braided hair out of his eyes,
concentrating on his knife as it carved into his flesh. He and his warriors had removed their left
vambraces and were cutting ritualistic slashes across their forearms. Always the first into any
breach, and the last to be extracted, his warriors were lethal combatants all.
Namar-sin, in stark comparison to Khalaxis, was composed and silent, though his one eye
gleamed with a fervour no less passionate than Khalaxis’s. His Havocs were dutifully tending their
weapons, apparently oblivious to the shuddering transport and the roar of the engines. They went
about their duties with utter focus, silently incanting benedictions of the dark gods upon their
revered heavy weapons.
Brother Sabtec’s face was serious, his stoic demeanour familiar and unwavering, and he led the
hallowed 13th coterie in a low chant as they checked over their life-systems, and ensured that
grenades, spare ammunition clips and devotional chapbooks were secured at their sides.
The final coterie, Kol Badar’s veteran Anointed, glared ahead blankly, their expressions grim.
Their faces were covered in ritual tattoos and each in turn lowered his head in deference as Marduk
looked upon them.
Burias was looking at his hand as the fingers fused and elongated into talons, before he forced
the daemon Drak’shal back and his hand took on its natural form once more. Marduk realised that
his control over the daemon was growing. Often the possessed would become little more than
screaming wretches, their will enslaved to one of the myriad entities that inhabited the warp, but
Burias’s mastery over Drak’shal was almost complete. Again, Burias let Drak’shal begin to rear
within him, and his hand blurred into daemonic talons, before he reasserted his dominance and
pushed the daemon back within him. Feeling Marduk’s gaze upon him, Burias’s eyes flicked up, and
he winked at the First Acolyte.
Darioq stood apart from the brothers of the Legion. The corrupted magos could not sit even had
he wished too; his mechanical body was not constructed to accommodate such luxury, and the bulk
of his servo-harness would have made it impossible. The activated electromagnets within his heavy,
augmented boots kept him locked to the floor, and his four mechanical servo-arms were braced
between two bulkheads. Weighing well over a metric tonne, nothing was going to move the technomagos.
“You have a wish to converse, Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion of Astartes,
genetic descendent of the traitor Primarch Lorgar?” said the magos. The timbre of his voice was
different, a growling, daemonic presence underlying his usual robotic monotone.
“Speak the word ‘traitor’ once more when referring to the blessed daemon-lord of our Legion,
Darioq-Grendh’al,” said Marduk, “and I shall allow Kol Badar to rip your limbs off one by one, and
no, I have no wish to converse with you.”
The Idolator made its way through the darkness across the featureless surface of the moon for
two hours, and as they drew near the target, Marduk intoned a final benediction, and the warriors of
the Host made ready to disembark. With his skull-faced helmet in place, Marduk ritualistically ran
through his final diagnostics, checking his life-systems and those of his revered power armour.
At last, throbbing blister-lights warned of the final approach, and Marduk rammed a fresh sickleclip
into his bolt-pistol. Retro-blasters fired, slowing the Idolator, and the nose of the transport craft
lifted as its momentum dropped.
Kol Badar relayed his debarkation orders with curt commands, ensuring that each of the four
coteries knew their position.
Restraint harnesses were thrown off as the rear landing legs touched down, and the vacuum seals
of the rear embarkation ramp were released with a hiss. Before the Idolator had even settled, the
37
ramp was thrown outwards, and snow and ice blasted into the interior, swirling around in blinding
eddies.
“Get him moving,” shouted Kol Badar over the screaming of engines and the howling of wind,
pointing towards Darioq, and two members of Namar-sin’s coterie urged the corrupted magos
towards the lowering ramp.
The first warriors were already pounding down the ramp, moving towards their allotted
positions, filing off left and right. Marduk stomped down the assault ramp and stepped onto the
frozen surface of Perdus Skylla. The enhanced auto-sensors in his helmet allowed his sight to pierce
the raging blizzard, though mere mortal eyes would have seen nothing but a blinding sheet of white.
Marduk filed off to the right just as the Land Raiders, two tucked beneath each stubbed wing,
were lowered onto the ice. They growled like angry war-beasts as they were released from their
locking clamps. Their engines revved, and smoke billowed from their daemon-headed exhaust
stacks. Marduk ducked his head as he entered the armoured hull of the closest Land Raider and
locked himself into a seat. Burias slammed into the seat opposite, a feral grin upon his features. As
usual, he did not deign to wear his helmet; his witch-sight easily the match of any automated
sensors. Long strands of oiled black hair that had escaped their binding whipped around his head
like a gorgon’s serpents.
Brother Sabtec and his esteemed 13th joined them, piling into the Land Raider and taking their
seats, and the assault ramp was slammed shut. The frenzied wind died away instantly, and the
shower of snow and ice settled on shoulder pads and greaves.
The Land Raider’s massive tracks spun on the ice for a second before catching, and the heavy
assault tank lurched into motion. Less than thirty seconds after the Idolator had landed, the four
Land Raiders, each filled with blessed warriors of Lorgar, were speeding across the surface of
Perdus Skylla.
Marduk was shaken as the assault tank hit a bank of snow, and there was a moment of
weightlessness as the front of the vehicle lifted up before crashing down again with titanic force.
“Twenty minutes to target,” growled Kol Badar over the vox.
Burias’s features shimmered like a faulty pict viewer, and the face of the daemon Drak’shal was
momentarily superimposed over his features. Tall, uneven horns rose from his brow, and deeply
slanted, hate-filled eyes blinked. Then Burias shook his head, pushing the daemon back within, and
the image was gone.
“Not long, Drak’shal,” said Marduk in the guttural tongue of the daemons. Burias grinned at him
once more.
38
CHAPTER FIVE
Hundred-kilometre winds whipped across the ice flow, and the roar of the storm was such that no
human ear would have heard any shout or the staccato reverberations of gunfire. The darkness
would have concealed anything from the naked eye, and the blinding swirl of ice, snow and fog was
such that all but the most sophisticated sensor arrays were rendered useless. Still, Marduk was
taking no chances as he elbowed his way cautiously forwards, edging nearer to the Imperial bastion.
He could see the dark shadow of the structure rising before him, though even his advanced autosensors
and magnifier auspexes had difficulty piercing the blinding gale. It was built into a massive
pinnacle of rock that pierced the thick ice, the first geological landmark that the Word Bearers had
thus far seen on Perdus Skylla. Marduk snarled up at the hateful silhouette of the fortress. It had
been constructed in the form of an immense aquila, the two-headed eagle that was the symbol of the
Imperium and the Emperor’s rule.
It rose some three hundred and fifty metres above the ice plains, the highest point on all of
Perdus Skylla. If the weather had been clearer, it could have been seen for kilometres all around, an
immense structure that dominated the landscape. Doubtless it had been built to remind the populace
of Perdus Skylla of the Emperor’s authority, to cow the people it loomed over and never let them
forget who it was that ruled their lives.
To the ignorant people of Perdus Skylla it might have been a symbol of reverence, but to
Marduk it represented all that he hated about the Imperium, all that he desired to see toppled.
What sort of empire would allow a lifeless corpse to be venerated as a god, and let pompous
fools and bureaucrats dictate how a galaxy was to be run? For the millionth time, he cursed the holy
warmaster for being laid low by the trickery of the enemy. Had Horus overthrown the Emperor, the
galaxy would never have fallen into stagnation and torpor. The Great Crusade would still be
underway, wiping all xenos and non-believers from the universe. Humanity would be united in faith.
