stink of burning flesh reached Varnus’s nostrils. Needle-tipped fingers plunged into the man’s neck
abruptly and he convulsed frantically, his prayer forgotten. His head stopped steaming and Varnus
realised that it must have been the prayer that had caused the reaction.
Turning to the other side, he saw Pierlo looking at him closely with his crazed eyes.
“What now?” hissed the man. He didn’t seem overly distressed to Varnus, but perhaps that was
his way of dealing with this horror. He envied the man, briefly. Kill him, came the voice within the
blare of the Discord.
“What new torture is this?”
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The dark figures of chirurgeons loomed over Varnus. They were loathsome creatures, their
hunched forms covered in shiny, black material. There was an unholy stink about them that made
him gag, and their arms ended in arrays of needles, clamps and syringes.
Something was writhing in the hands of the hateful surgeons and he felt sickness pull within his
gut at the sight of the vile, wriggling thing. It was a small, mechanical, flat box that looked
somewhat like the translator machines that the overseers spoke through. However, the thin sides of
the box were coated in a smooth, black-oily skin that pulsed with movement from within. Four
short, stubby tentacles waved from the corners of the box, fighting at the chirurgeon’s grasp. His
gaze was forcefully removed from the vile blend of mechanics and daemon spawn as a further pair
of black-clad chirurgeons pulled his head around.
“Open your mouth,” came the voice of an overseer at his ear, but Varnus resisted. Pain jolted
through him as the overseer ran one of its needle fingers along his neck, and he opened his mouth
wide in a cry of pain. The chirurgeons darted eagerly forwards with their mechanical hands,
whirring power clamps gripping his front teeth. Without ceremony, the teeth were ripped from his
jaw. Blood poured from the holes in his gums and he groaned in pain.
Yet the chirurgeons had not finished their brutal surgery. Gripping his head tightly, one of them
leant forwards with another mechanical device, and Varnus tried to pull away from it desperately,
blood running down his throat and spurting over his chin. He could not escape the attentions of the
twisted, hunched chirurgeon, however, and as its partner hit Varnus’s lower jaw to close his mouth,
the first sadistic creature slammed its mechanical device into the side of his face.
A metal, barbed staple, half a hand-length wide, punched through the bone of Varnus’s jaw and
cheek, pinning his mouth closed. The metal bit deep into the bone, and Varnus gargled in agony. A
second staple punched into the bone on the other side of his face.
That was when the black, tentacled thing was brought towards him. The chirurgeon thrust the
fighting thing at his face and Varnus screamed, his jaw stapled shut, in pain and terror. He tried to
turn away, but his head was held tight and the box was placed over his mouth.
He screamed and screamed as the four questing tentacles probed his skin, the touch stinging and
burning his flesh. The tentacles felt their way across his face, and with horror he realised there was a
fifth, thicker tentacle pushing through the gap in his front teeth and into his mouth. No, it wasn’t a
tentacle, he realised as his tongue touched the vile thing. It was a hollow, fleshy tube, and as it
entered his mouth it began to expand and push itself down into his throat, flattening his tongue
against the base of his mouth.
Two tentacles latched under Varnus’s jaw, burrowing into his flesh to secure a tight hold, and
the remaining two leech-like appendages wriggled across his cheeks, probing at the corners of his
eyes before burrowing agonisingly into the skin at his temples. He roared in excruciating pain, the
sound alien and strangely mechanical to his ears, altered by the thing clamped firmly over his mouth
and nose. He breathed in deeply which was heavy and difficult, and he felt a foul, sickly sweet taste
in his mouth and nose.
White-hot pain shot through his head as the tentacles burrowed further into his flesh. They
ceased wriggling within him, but the pain remained. His breathing was laboured and the figures
above him went hazy, spots of light appearing before him, and he fell into the nightmare of his
unconsciousness.
The warriors of the Adeptus Mechanicus stepped inexorably forwards, like a seething, relentless
carpet, spread out across the hard-packed salt plain. Some amongst them were almost human,
though even these were hard-wired into the weapon systems they bore, their brain stems augmented
with mechanics and sensors. The Coryphaus had seen their like before. He had fought against
loyalist members of the Cult Mechanicus on their Forge Worlds during the advance on Terra ten
thousand years earlier. More recently, he had fought alongside those members of the Machine Cult
that had long sworn their allegiance to the true gods, the powers of Chaos.
65
Sheer cliffs rose up on either side of the valley their tops hidden by dark, brooding, heavy cloud.
The rumble of thunder boomed from the heavens and flashes punctuated the dark, threatening sky.
The insides of the massed, bulbous clouds lit up as lightning crackled within, arcing, skeletal fingers
of electricity that clawed across their surface.
The rain had been falling for almost an hour, hard and driving, lashing down upon the servitors
as they plodded forwards at the impulse of their masters. The ground beneath their feet was pooled
with salt sludge. The grinding tracks of weapon platforms and hissing crawlers ripped up the
ground, creating mires in their wake as they slowly advanced amongst the serried cohorts of
mindless and augmented servitors.
Visibility was poor across the open ground, as waves of driving rain were driven into the valley
by the fierce winds that were picking up.
Screaming shells descended out of the gloom, accompanied by the constant ramble of artillery
that was almost indiscernible from the sound of the building storm. They fell from the high ridges to
either side of the valley, obscured by cloud and rain, and detonated amongst the ranks of servitor
warriors, sending flesh and mechanics flying in all direction. Red blood and pale, unnatural fluids
mixed with the pooling waters underfoot. They made no cries of fear or pain as they were destroyed,
though even if they had they would not have carried through the pounding torrents of falling rain.
While visibility was poor for the Word Bearers, who were barely able to see the advancing
enemy just rounding the dog-leg of the valley, the wretched slaves that Kol Badar had brought with
him were virtually blind. They stood close together, weeping and terrified, shivering in the icy wind
and rain that battered at them. They were chained together still, in long lines, clustered in front of
the massive Word Bearers, who stood oblivious and uncaring of the hardships they endured at being
exposed to the elements.
Kol Badar ordered the advance. Confused and deafened by the sheer fury of the downpour, they
looked around blankly. Word Bearers pushed them roughly forward with the barrels of their bolters.
A few shots into their midst soon had them moving, and almost five thousand slaves were goaded on
through the torrential downpour. Scores of them fell, bustled by their terrified comrades. They were
crushed underfoot, many drowning in the pooling, ankle deep water as their desperate companions
scrambled over them, their only thought being to keep in front of their tormentors. Their limp,
lifeless bodies were forced along with the push of humanity and dragged by the chains secured to
their necks.
The Word Bearers advanced behind the seething mass of terrified slaves. They intoned from the
Book of Lorgar as they marched through the strengthening rain, while the melancholic phrases
recited by those warriors within their Rhino and Land Raider transports blared out from amplifiers
on the outsides of the vehicles. Ancient, holy Predator tanks, their mighty turrets and weapon
sponsons decorated with scriptures, bronze daemonic maws and icons scrawled in blood, rolled
forwards at the wings of the Word Bearers, alongside Defilers and other daemon engines. The howls
of the machines rose through the rain that hissed and turned to steam as it neared the infernal hulls
of the hellish creations. Dreadnoughts were guided forwards by black-clad handlers, screaming
insanely or reliving ancient battles long passed. Kol Badar and his Anointed warriors walked in the
centre of the line.
The bombardment from the ridges above continued unabated, but Kol Badar was furious. There
should have been more fire coming from above, and he was still angered by his earlier conversation.
“Unacceptable losses against a weakling foe,” he had growled through the vox-unit.
“My warriors hold the ridges still, Coryphaus,” was the snarled response from Marduk, the First
Acolyte.
“The barrage will not be as effective as anticipated. Your failure will cost the lives of more of
our brethren,” retorted Kol Badar.
“You did not predict an attack of such strength,” snapped Marduk. “If there has been a failure, it
has been yours.”
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Kol Badar lashed out in anger towards an attendant daubing fresh sigils on his armour, but
pulled the blow just before it connected, and merely clenched the talons of his power fist tightly,
instead. The robed figure flinched backwards, then tentatively continued with its work. If the
warlord had continued through with the strike, it would have instantly killed the attendant.
“You go too far. One day soon there will be a reckoning between us, whelp,” Kol Badar had
promised, before severing the vox transmission.
The slaves stampeded ahead of the Word Bearers, running blindly through the rain. They began
to die before they even glimpsed their killers.
A thick beam of white energy surged out of the gloom, cutting through the ranks of slaves. Their
bodies burst into blue and white flames that rose fiercely, melting the chains binding the wretches to
dripping liquid. A millisecond later, the flames all but died away, leaving piles of white ash in the
shapes of the victims. A second later the morbid statues crumbled as they were trampled by the
press of bodies that filled the sudden gap in the ranks.
As if the shot was the clarion call announcing the commencement of battle, the gloom was
suddenly ripped apart as the guns of the Adeptus Mechanicus spoke. Blasts of plasma screamed
through the air, massive rotating assault cannons upon the back of tracked units roared as they began
to spin, and salvoes of hellfire missiles were launched.
The slaves surged through the inferno of death, hundreds of them slaughtered within the first
second of the barrage. Those at the rear turned to flee from this new threat, but the bolters of the
Word Bearers barked, dropping them in droves. And so, the slaves surged forwards once more,
running towards those that they would call allies, who were cutting them down mercilessly, killing
them in droves.
A barking roar was unleashed as the Skitarii fired. Heavy bolters tore through the flesh of the
slaves, and flashes from thousands of lasguns streaked through the rain.
The chained slaves surged towards those who appeared, through the gloom, to be Imperial
Guardsmen, clearly not registering that their saviours were to be their executioners.
Kol Badar laughed as the Cult Mechanicus wasted its ammunition. All the while, the Word
Bearers marched relentlessly forwards, shielded by the flesh of the Imperial slaves.
The Chaos Space Marines began to fire their own weapons. Lascannons from the lower reaches
of the ridge seared down through the gloom, spearing into the heavy weapon platforms grinding
along slowly. Predators of ancient, extinct design and Land Raiders daubed with Chaos sigils added
their own weight to the fire, and the demented Dreadnoughts and daemon engines roared in
excitement, bitterness and anger as they sighted the foe. Battle cannons boomed, autocannons
shrieked, missiles screamed through the rain and heavy bolters barked.
The Anointed opened up, cutting down the last of the slaves as they neared the true foe. Striding
forwards, Kol Badar saw the approaching ranks of Skitarii through the press of frantic slaves and
impatiently shot down those in his way.
The front rank of the foe consisted of heavily augmented servitor warriors with massive shields
built into their mechanical arms. These shields shimmered with power as they deflected bolter shots,
protecting them and those in the ranks behind. They advanced slowly step by lumbering step, a
walking barricade, firing their lasguns through the slaves and into the advancing Word Bearers. The
top right corner of each shield was cut down to allow the larger guns of those behind to fire. The
two opposing forces were close, and the fusillade was furious. Kol Badar grinned as he powered
unscathed through the carnage, the revered plasteel plating of his Terminator armour absorbing the
incoming fire.
He had ensured that his most vicious, blood-hungry warriors, those who strayed closest to the
dedicated worship of blessed Khorne, were the first wave of Word Bearers to engage the enemy, and
they cleaved into the foe with brutal force. The heavy shields of the front line of the enemy were
hacked down with powerful blows from chainaxes and spiked power mauls, and bolter fire tore into
the flesh of those behind. The shield-servitors were slow and lumbering, though they took a lot of
67
punishment before they stopped moving. Kol Badar saw several of them fighting on, even with
limbs hacked off and bolt having removed parts of their skulls.
Lasgun shots peppered off Kol Badar’s armour like flies, and he punched his talons through a
heavy shield, sparks flying and power conduits screaming as the blow impaled the Skitarii through
its neck. With a flick of his arm, he hurled the servitor warrior over his shoulder, and unleashed his
combi-bolter on full auto into the packed Skitarii ranks behind. These were softer targets. They had
been augmented in lesser ways, not taking them fully down the path to becoming mindless servitors.
Targeting sensors had replaced their left eyes, and the left halves of their heads were a mass of
wiring and mechanics, but their bodies were easily torn apart by the bolter fire of the advancing
