Word Bearers.
At a distance, they would be dangerous foes, for many of them carried heavier armaments than a
humble Guardsman would be able to bear, but up close they were slaughtered by the brute force and
speed of the Word Bearers. The Anointed bludgeoned their way into the heart of the Skitarii
formation. It mattered not to these elite killers that the enemy fought on after having sustained
wounds that would drop a regular human. The Word Bearers, and the Anointed in particular, were
far from regular humans themselves—they were demi-gods of war, and they tore apart the Skitarii
with fury and passion.
Within ten minutes, as if a switch was flicked inside the mechanical heads of the thousands of
remaining Skitarii, they began to re-form, walking steadily backwards as one, while continuing to
lay down their withering fire into the Chaos Marines.
With a surge of his servo-enhanced muscles, Kol Badar pushed forwards into the retreating foe,
punching the whirling chainblade that served as a bayonet upon his combi-bolter through the pudgy
white face of another foe, and ripping the head and spinal column from another, electrodes and
sparking fuses still attached to the vertebrae.
Heavily armoured servitors moved to the fore, stalking forwards between the ordered ranks of
the lesser warriors, and Kol Badar was pleased to see that these foes were more to his liking. Around
the height of a regular Chaos Space Marine, these were heavily armoured in thick, dark, metal
armour. The mechanics of their left arms ended in spinning cannons that roared as they pumped fire
from their multiple barrels. Ammo-feeds smoked as fresh bullets were fed to the guns from heavy
integrated backpacks.
Concentrated bursts from the weapons were carving through power armour, and Kol Badar
hissed in anger as he was rocked backwards by their force, though his Terminator armour was not
breached. He fired his combi-bolter, blasting the gun-arm from a warrior in a shower of sparks, but
it kept coming at him swinging its other arm towards him in a murderous thrust as the drill-arm
began to spin. Metallic tentacles attached to the Skitarii’s spinal column reached forwards to ensnare
him, but Kol Badar had no intentions of backing away from the machine warrior.
With a backhand swipe of his power talons, he smashed the whirling, industrial drill away and
fired his combi-bolter into the chest of the foe. Mechadendrite tentacles latched onto his chest and
shoulder plates, and small drill pieces whined as they began to bore neat holes through the ancient
suit. Firing his bolter again into the chest of the warrior, he ripped at the tentacles. Their grip on him
was stronger than their binding to the warrior’s spine, and he ripped them free of the Skitarii’s back.
Firing again, its armour cracking and shattering, the Skitarii fell onto its back. Kol Badar ended its
straggles by slamming his heavy foot down into its head, pulverising the human skull and brain
within its blank, metal faceplate.
Ripping off the tentacles still attached to his armour, he saw with pride that not one of his
Anointed had fallen to these warriors, though several power armoured warrior-brothers had
succumbed to their weaponry. He saw one of the Skitarii warriors torn apart by the fire from the
reaper autocannon of one cult member, its chest a ruin of armour, machinery and seeping blood.
The enemy continued to retreat, but the thought of calling off the battle never entered Kol
Badar’s head. He would push on, deep into the foe, and inflict as much damage as possible, only
68
calling off the attack when the terrain began to favour the Imperials once more. Even then, calling
off the slaughter would be difficult, nigh on impossible, for the frenzied Dreadnoughts that were
ploughing into the enemy.
One of the insane war machines broke into a lumbering run, smashing aside a warrior-brother in
its eagerness to reach the foe. It was roaring incoherently, and gunfire leapt from its twin
autocannon barrels and from the underslung bolters beneath its scything array of war blades. Other,
swifter warrior-brothers backed out of the way of the charging machine, and it ripped into the
Skitarii, its war blades cutting down four of them with one scissoring blow.
The Coryphaus recognised the Dreadnought as housing the corpse of Brother Shaldern, who had
fallen against the hated coward Legion of Rouboute Gulliman, the Ultramarines, during the battle on
Calth. His sanity had long since abandoned him. Such was the way with those entombed within the
sarcophagi of the dangerous war machines, and Kol Badar wondered briefly if he would rather die
upon the field of battle than suffer endless torment within one of those cursed engines. Few retained
any semblance of rationality. That the Warmonger maintained as much lucidity as he did was a
testament to the intense faith and belief that the Dark Apostle had wielded in life, and had taken
with him into his hateful half-life.
The machine ploughed through the enemy and a great roar went up from the Word Bearers.
“Forward, warrior-brothers!” Kol Badar bellowed. “For the glory of the Legion!”
69
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mechadendrites attached to the spinal column of Techno-Magos Darioq stretched out before him.
Needle-like electro-jacks emerged from the tips of these mechanical, clawed tentacles and plunged
into circular plugs around the base of the cylindrical device rising smoothly from the floor of the
control room. Each of the electro-jacks was around fifteen centimetres in length, and they rotated as
the magos connected with the machine-spirit of his command vehicle.
The room was dark and claustrophobic, with exposed pipes and wires lining the walls and
twisting across the low ceiling. Eerie light spilled from the screens around the room as lines of data
flicked across their surfaces. Hissing steam vented from latticed grills in the floor plates, and thick,
ribbed tubing snaked from the grills to climb the walls and disappear amongst the dense, confusing
network of conduits.
Pilots and technicians hard-wired into the control room were built into the walls, their forms
almost hidden amongst the mass of coiling pipes that engulfed them. Insulated wiring entered the
fused hemispheres of their brains through eye sockets, nostrils and ears. They manipulated controls
through cables that plugged into the remnants of flesh that remained of their mortal bodies, and from
each fingertip spread a spider web of intricate cables, attaching them directly into the holy machine
that they were a part of.
Darioq muttered the incantation of supplication to the machine-spirit and recited the logis
dictates that would ignite the spark of connection as his electro-jacks continued to manipulate the
inner core workings of the command column. Speaking blessings to the Omnissiah, he tripped the
internal switches within his own mechanised form, and his spirit joined with that of his flagship in a
surge of images, information and release.
Hovering fifty metres in the air, the bloated airship that served as Darioq’s command centre was
as stable as the ground, despite the torrential downpour of rain and the sharp burst of wind that the
magos felt buffeting its banded sides. Connected to the huge machine’s spirit, he felt the rain and
wind on its thick sides as if it were an extension of himself. Massive rotating spotlights that cut
through the darkness were his eyes, and endless feeds of information flooded through the multiple
logic engines within his construction, filing through the domed hemispheres of his “true” brain,
which then filtered relevant data out into the charged liquid housing domes that enclosed his
secondary brain units.
He felt the smooth running engines that powered the mass turbines keeping the hulk airborne,
and sensed the holy oils lubricating the cogs and gears slipping through the mechanics, as the
dictates required. He could feel the scurrying feet of servitors, Skitarii and priests through the
labyrinthine tunnels within the airship’s underhull, and the spark of sensation as these servants of
the Omnissiah plugged themselves into the vast machine, linking them to him and him to them. He
could see through the augmetic eyes of these lesser minions and feel the twitch of their vat-born
muscles.
His spirit reached out through the thick, insulated cabling that fed from his control station,
travelling through the circuitry and carefully constructed piping that linked the airship to the
Ordinatus Magentus far below. He linked himself to the intractable spirit of that great creation and
whispered a prayer to the shrine-machine as he flowed through its holy workings.
Probing at the plasma-reactor at the core of the Magentus, he felt the contained power within, a
blessing from the Machine-God. Back in his command station, he felt the vibratory impulse that pre70
empted a vox transmissions arrival. An electro-pulse fired within Darioq’s true brain and the magos
recognised the sensation as irritation. He retracted his spirit from that of the Magentus in an instant
and returned to his flagship. Though he remained in connection with the airship, he allowed his
physical faculties to come to the fore and received visual stimulus through the glowing crystals of
his augmetic right eye, and through the blearing, inferior gaze of his left, organic eye.
With a twist of one of his mechadendrites, Darioq turned a function dial on the command pillar
and a hololith atop the pillar sparked into life. A three-dimensional image of an Imperial Guard
officer sprang into existence, his every feature picked out in the intricate network of crisscrossing
green lines. It showed the man’s head and shoulders, and extended down to his chest.
“Blessings of the Omnissiah to you, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn,” said Darioq.
“Blessings of the God-Emperor to you, magos,” said the green rendering of Havorn, the sound
issuing from the speaker box built into the command pillar slightly out of time with the movement
of the lips.
“Your tech-guard suffer many losses, my reports tell me.”
“The losses of the servitors and Skitarii units is acceptable, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn.
The Hypaspists and the Sagitarii units are replaceable. The Praetorians’ destruction was necessary to
conduct the falling back of the cohorts. The loss of several of the Ordinatus Minoris machines of the
Ballisterarii is regrettable, but predicted by my cogitator engine. The Omnissiah has reclaimed their
spirits unto the bosom of Mars.”
“And are your preparations for the second push proceeding as planned, magos?”
“The Exemplis advances, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn, and a larger concentration of
cohort units advances beneath its hallowed shadow. My Cataphractarii lead the holy procession.”
“Six companies of the 133rd will accompany your tech-guard. They are advancing as we speak.
Alongside them are heavy armour squadrons,” said the image of the Elysian commander. “Members
of the 72nd will reengage the foe within the highlands to coincide with our combined assault.”
“I will accede to your wishes, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn. Your flesh units and heavy
armour will accompany the second push.”
The image of Havorn’s face frowned darkly, but Techno-Magos Darioq had long passed the
point of being able to read facial expressions. He could read more from a blank data-slate or the
turning of an engine than he could from the facial contortions of the fleshed.
“Never have I heard of such willingness by the Mechanicus to throw its tech-guard at an enemy,
but one threatening one of the Forge Worlds. You can understand my… confusion, magos.”
“The Adeptus Mechanicus supports the armies of the Emperor in all endeavours, Brigadier-
General Ishmael Havorn. The Adeptus Mechanicus wishes to support the battle against the enemy
on this planet c6.7.32.”
“Yes, as you have said, magos. I just wish to the Emperor that I knew why.”
“To many within the Cult Mechanicus, the Emperor of Terra and the Omnissiah are one. They
would say that the Imperial Guard and the regiments of Mars enact his will equally.”
The image of Havorn raised its eyebrow at a figure off-screen.
“It is usual for brothers in arms to share pertinent information regarding their purpose.”
“The Adeptus Mechanicus wishes to support the battle against the enemy on this planet c6.7.32.
That is the purpose of this expedition force.”
“Expedition force? This is a war zone!”
“You are correct, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn. Your voice has risen by 1.045 octaves, and
my logarithmic codifier indicates that your volume has increased by 37.854 Imperial standard
decibels. Are you unwell, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn?”
“What?” asked the Imperial commander.
“Your voice has risen by—” began Darioq before he was interrupted.
“Emperor above!” exclaimed Havorn.
71
“The mnemo strands within my logic engines suggest that some savage cultures within the
Imperium believe that the Emperor does exist beyond the atmosphere of their home world. Do you
believe this, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn? Is that why you speak the words ‘Emperor
above’?”
“Are you attempting a joke, magos? I thought such a thing was beyond one such as you.”
“I do not understand the concept of humour, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn. My memory
functions contain the information pertaining to the notion, but I have erased my memories of such a
notion as inconsequential to the Omnissiah.”
The image of Havorn stared fixedly at the inscrutable visage of Darioq. The magos waited
patiently for the Elysian commander to speak once more.
“Move the Exemplis to the front line. We attack before dawn,” he said, and cut the connection.
Darioq removed his mechadendrites from the command pillar and the image of Havorn, frozen
in a scowl when the Elysian severed the connection, disappeared. A ghostly after-image remained
for a second before it too faded.
He stood motionless for a moment, his brains alight with sparks of thought. For a few moments
the eyelid of his weak, organic flesh-eye flickered as he accessed information stored deep within one
subsidiary cortex, and he plunged the blade of the electro-jack on the tip of one of his
mechadendrites back into the column.
Another green-lined image sprang up, hovering above the surface of the command column. It
showed the rotating sphere of a planet, a stark, rocky and lifeless world. Polar ice-flows spread out
