flushed with the thought of the rebuke he had received.
“Speak as the Coryphaus, Kol Badar, not as yourself Jarulek had scolded him gently.
9
Kol Badar had clenched his heavy jaw tight, looking down. “What would you have me say, Dark
Apostle?” he had asked, his voice sounding course and crude in his ears after Jarulek’s velvet words.
“I would have you speak for the Host, as the Coryphaus. Does the Host accept him?”
“The Host follows your word without fault, my lord.”
“Of course. Meaning?”
“Meaning that they embrace and revere him, for it is your will for them to do so,” he had said,
his voice thick.
“And speaking as yourself?” Jarulek had asked, softly.
“He is an upstart newborn risen beyond his position. He has not been with us from the start. He
did not fight at our side as we assailed the cursed False Emperor’s lapdogs on Terra.” Kol Badar had
fumed. “You should have let me kill him.”
Jarulek had chuckled at that. “A newborn, I have not heard you call him that before. He has
fought against the False Emperor mere centuries less than you and I, old friend.”
Kol Badar’s face had darkened. “He was not there at the start.”
“No, but a long time has passed since then: ten thousand years in the world of mortals.”
“We do not live in the realm of mortals.” Kol Badar had replied. Time held no sway over the
warp: a warrior may spend a month within its unstable boundaries, emerging to find that the galaxy
had changed, that countless decades had flown by. To Kol Badar, the siege of the Emperor’s palace
felt like mere centuries ago, not the staggering ten thousand years that had passed since that time,
and his memories of it were strong.
“He has been chosen by the gods.” Jarulek had said. “Do not straggle against their will, Kol
Badar. They are unforgiving masters, and a soul like yours would be an exquisite plaything. You are
my most loyal and honoured warrior—do not let your hatred of him be your ruin.”
A mournful, tolling bell echoed across the expanse of the cavaedium. Silence descended, and not
a movement stirred through the massed ranks of the Word Bearers. This was the start of the
exhortation, and the entire Host stood in silence, awaiting the arrival of the Dark Apostle.
Kol Badar was a warlord, a killer and a destroyer of worlds. But, along with the rest of the Host,
he would wait, patient, unmoving and in silence, for the arrival of the holy Dark Apostle. If it took a
minute or a week, he would stand immobile. And so he waited.
“Go,” said the voice over the comm-channel. Reacting instantly, black-armoured figures of the
Shinar enforcers stepped out of the gloom of the narrow alleyway. Lieutenant Varnus levelled and
fired his combat issue shotgun at the heavy locking mechanism of the rusted door. The sound of the
weapon echoed deafeningly, and a fist-sized hole was punched through the metal. Varnus slammed
a heavy boot into the door, swinging it violently open, and surged through, the other enforcers close
behind him.
The door opened to a refuse strewn corridor, dully lit by humming glow-globes. A man sitting
with his feet up on the crude synthetic table looked up, eyes wide, lho-stick hanging limply from his
mouth. A second blast from the shotgun threw him backwards, slamming him against the wall in a
spray of blood.
“Entrance gained,” said Varnus, opening up the comm-channel.
“All teams have entered the complex. Proceed as planned,” said the captain in reply.
“Yes, sir,” said Varnus. He mouthed an obscenity under his breath once the comm-channel was
closed.
Moving in a half crouch up the corridor, he stepped quickly over the scattered piles of twisted
metal and broken masonry.
“Smells like a damn sewage pit,” muttered one of the enforcers. Varnus was forced to agree. He
indicated sharply to a closed door as he passed it. A pair of enforcers behind him took up positions
to either side of it. One kicked it open, and the two of them moved in, shotguns raised. The sharp,
10
focused beams of light from their helmets swung around to locate any threats. The other two
enforcers in the team moved up in support of Varnus. He paused at the end of the corridor, and
glanced quickly around the corner: another empty, sparse corridor, this one with a single door
leading from it. Glow-globes overhead flickered weakly.
Varnus stepped around the corner and moved forwards cautiously, the focused beam from his
helmet piercing the dark comers that the weak illumination of the glow globes failed to light.
Rodents scurried away from the brightness. The stench was overpowering.
“Who in the Emperor’s name would want to hide out here?” remarked one of his team, swearing
colourfully.
“Those who don’t want to be disturbed,” said Varnus sharply. “And cut the chatter, Landers. I’m
sick of your whine.” The enforcer muttered something under his breath, and Varnus resisted the
urge to turn on the big man. Focus, he told himself, and stepped towards the closer of the two doors.
He heard the sound of muffled voices, a shout. He swore.
Varnus slammed his heavy boot into the door, and it collapsed inwards, its hinges long corroded.
A pair of men were raising a heavy metal hatch in the floor of the room. One, his eyes filled with
fear, dropped down into the darkness of the bolt-hole. The other raised an autopistol, face twisted in
hatred, and raking fire spat from the end of the stub-nosed weapon. Varnus’s shotgun barked, even
as the bullets from the pistol ripped across his chest, and the man’s head exploded in a splatter of
gore.
Varnus fell back from the impact of the projectiles on his carapace armour. “Get the other one,”
he wheezed.
“I can’t fit down there,” remarked Landers, shrugging his shoulders. He nodded towards the
smallest of the four enforcers, a grin on his face.
“One of you damn well go! Now!” roared Varnus, pulling himself to his feet. The slight enforcer
swore, seeing the eyes of the whole team on him. He placed his shotgun on the floor of the room,
drew and cocked his autopistol and dropped into the darkness of the bolt-hole. The sound of the man
scrambling through a metal duct echoed loudly beneath them.
Still wheezing, Varnus opened up his comm-channel.
“They are running. Undisclosed bolt-holes. Orders?”
Varnus pulled the bullets from his chest-plate as he waited for a response. He could feel the heat
from the bullets through the leather of his gloves.
“Captain?” he said with some impatience. “Did you hear me? What are our orders?”
There was a muffled grant of pain from the bolt-hole, and then the sound of three gunshots. The
enforcer reappeared a moment later. “Bastard stuck me,” he said, his hand gripped around his left
arm, blood seeping between his fingers.
“Hold position. Awaiting new intel,” came the captain’s terse response, finally.
“Hold position? They will have cleared out by the time we wait for new intel!”
“Hold your position, lieutenant.” The comm-bead clicked closed in his helmet.
“Frek that,” said Varnus. Yanking the last of the autopistol bullets from his chest plate, he threw
them to the ground. “Right, let’s move.”
“Lieutenant?” questioned one of the enforcers.
“The bastards are getting away. We close on the target position, now. If the Emperor wills it, we
may yet salvage something from this mission. Move!”
“That’s what the captain’s orders are, are they?” asked Landers, disbelief clear on his face.
Varnus turned quickly, stepping in close to the bigger man, and slammed a clenched fist into his
face. Landers fell back, a cry more of shock than pain escaping his lips.
“I am your lieutenant, damn you, you slimy arse licker, and you will do as I damn well say,”
snarled Varnus. “Now, all of you, let’s move out.”
11
Leading the way, Varnus pushed on deeper into the stinking, crumbling complex. He heard the
others falling in behind him, and heard Landers muttering to himself. He grinned. He had wanted to
punch that man for months.
The enforcers moved on, covering each other as they ghosted through the corridors and down
corroded metal stairways. Varnus heard running footsteps ahead, and raised a hand, crouching low.
He turned off the light on his helmet, the other enforcers following suit, and they plunged into dim,
semi-light. A figure ran lightly around a corner, and Varnus reared up, slamming the butt of his
shotgun into the figure’s head. There was a crunching sound, and the figure dropped. Clicking his
light back on, he saw it was a woman, her hair clipped short. Her eyes were open and staring, and
blood seeped from her head where Varnus had struck her. An autogun was clasped in her dead
hands.
“We are close,” said Varnus.
Carefully descending another flight of metal stairs, the enforcer team could see a flickering of
orange light coming from below. The stink of promethium filled their nostrils.
Reaching the landing below, the team was faced with a single, heavy door standing slightly ajar,
its plasglass window smashed through. Flames could be seen on the other side.
“Quickly,” hissed Varnus, and the enforcer team entered the room. It was a large, square space,
and one of the glow-globes in the ceiling exploded as flames touched it. Couches and chairs were
ablaze, as was a low table covered in papers and documents. The walls were lined with bunks and
desks, and a makeshift kitchen had been constructed in the eastern corner. The figure of a man,
oblivious to the sudden appearance of the enforcers, was liberally upending the contents of a metal
can across a table on the far side of the room.
Varnus hissed, motioning for his team to lower their weapons. “Take him, no guns,” he mouthed
to Landers. The enforcer nodded, the confrontation of minutes earlier forgotten, and moved swiftly
towards the figure. Feeling the presence behind him too late, the man turned just as Landers’s thick
arms wrapped around his neck, locking him firmly. He was dragged back across the room, and
slammed face first onto the floor, his arms held painfully behind his back. The man struggled in
vain, and Landers dropped his knee into the man’s back, pinning him in place.
Varnus ran across the room and picked up one of the sodden papers that covered the promethium
doused table. It was a detailed schematic map. He swore as he saw what it detailed.
“Get these damn flames out now! This whole place could go up at any second!” Varnus
hollered. He opened up his comm-channel. “Captain, this is Lieutenant Varnus. You need to get in
here. Now,” he said, moving back towards Landers and the captive.
He knelt down beside the pinned captive and turned his face roughly towards him. The man’s
features were twisted in hatred and pain.
“What in the Emperor’s name were you planning here?” Varnus said quietly.
The captive spat, eyes blazing with fury.
“What do you make of these, lieutenant? Gang markings? I don’t recognise them,” said one of
the enforcers.
Varnus looked to where the man motioned with his head. A crude tattoo was visible where the
captive’s dark brown overalls had been torn at his left shoulder. Ripping the heavy cloth fully away
from the man’s body, he gazed upon the emblazoned design: a screaming, horned daemon head
surrounded by flames.
“I don’t recognise it either, but it looks like some kind of damn cult marking to me,” said
Varnus. He swore silently to himself.
12
CHAPTER TWO
Burias walked with a warrior’s grace as he stalked through the dark, musty smelling halls of the
Infidus Diabolus, impatient for the slaughter that was soon to come. His armour was a deep, bruised
red, edged in dull, brushed metal. It was an exhibit of exceptional craftsmanship, each heavy
ceramite plate fitting perfectly over his powerful, enhanced body.
He could not recall a time when his sacred armour had not been a part of him. He had laboured
over every coiling engraving covering the auto-reductive armour plates, had painstakingly whittled
the words of blessed Lorgar along the burnished reinforcement bands that circled his forearms, and
had carved the words of the gods themselves around the rim of his heavy shoulder plates. The sacred
Latros Sacrum, the symbol that represented the Word Bearers Legion was embossed on his left
shoulder. A bronze, stylized representation of a roaring, horned daemon surrounded by flames, it
represented all that the Legion and Burias stood for, all that they believed in and all that they killed
for.
He wore no helmet for the upcoming exhortation. His vicious, deathly pale face was unmarked
by scars, a rarity for a warrior who had fought in as many campaigns as he had, and it was framed
by long, oiled black hair.
With each step, the heavy butt of the icon that Burias held in his left hand slammed into the
polished, black-veined, stone floor, the sharp sound echoing around him.
The icon was a thick staff of spiked, black iron. It was almost three metres tall, taller even than
him, and loops of heavily ornate bronze encircled its shaft. These loops were inscribed with litanies
and epistles, sacred words of the Daemon Primarch Lorgar. It was topped with a glistening, black,
eight-pointed star, the points of the symbol of Chaos barbed and sharp. In the centre of the star was
a graven image of the sacred Latros Sacrum.
Burias had received the honour of becoming icon-bearer with great pride, and he had the
privilege of walking before Marduk, the First Acolyte, and Jarulek, the Dark Apostle, leading them
to their positions in the ceremonies of worship and sacrifice. He had performed this sacred duty for
many years, and the esteem he had earned from his warrior-brothers as a result was great.
He paused before he began his ascent up a grand set of curving stairs. The staircase was wide
enough for twenty Space Marines to walk side by side, and its curving balustrades were highly
ornate and picked out in bronze, crafted by some unknown hand countless aeons past. Two
intimidating statues glared at any wishing to climb the steps, monstrous, coiling daemons said to
strike down those with unworthy hearts.
Raising his head high, Burias began the long climb, his footfalls on the cold stone echoing up
into the gloom of the arching ceiling hundreds of metres above. Ghostly chanting flowed down upon
him, the sound of dozens of servitor eunuchs, forever ensconced in hidden pulpit-casings, intoning
the canticles of blessed Lorgar in never-ending cycles.
