on the ground, a gunshot wound in the man’s head. He leant down and picked up the guard’s longbarrelled
las-lock. It was heavy and unwieldy in his hands, but it was a weapon none-the-less.
Rounding a corner, Varnus saw a pair of palace guards standing over a fallen man. He wore a
plain, cream coloured robe, identical to any number of anonymous bureaucrats that worked within
the palace. Seeing him, the guards shouldered their weapons. Varnus held up his hands.
“I’m an enforcer. What the hell is going on?” Varnus managed.
“Insurgents,” said one of the guards. “Our commander has called us out onto the upper
battlements. You had best come with us, enforcer.”
Varnus nodded his head and hurried along after the guards as best as he could. Through winding
passages they passed, through hissing blast doors that their pass-cards gave access to. They climbed
a set of steel stairs, and finally passed through a heavy door to emerge upon the high battlements of
the palace bastion. The door slammed shut with grim finality behind them.
It was night. No, it was almost dawn, Varnus realised. How long had he been unconscious?
He saw masses of PDF soldiers garrisoned along the battlements and smaller groups of bluearmoured
guards. They were rushing all over the bastion, the whole area seething with soldiers.
Many were firing over the battlements at unseen foes on one of the multiple lower terraces of the
bastion, and streaking lasgun fire answered them. Men crouched behind other sections of the
battlements as rocket propelled grenades struck the walls, and they were raked by heavy gunfire.
Men were shouting, and with the cacophony of gunfire and explosions, it seemed to Varnus that he
had escaped the burning section of the palace only to enter a hell of a different kind.
28
Pain lanced through his side and Varnus grimaced, holding his hand to the bleeding wound.
“I’m fine,” he wheezed as he saw the guards accompanying him hesitate, caught between aiding
him and joining the gun battle.
“Go,” he said, making the decision for them.
Floodlights lit up the battlements as if it were daylight, and Varnus, leaning heavily on his
salvaged las-lock, staggered across the open area to take cover below the thick crenellations. He
risked a quick glance down towards the sprawling, ugly city.
There was a series of lower terraces below the battlements upon which he stood, but beyond
them he could see dozens of fires burning all across Shinar, and he could hear a steady thump of
explosions coming from all over the city. From over the horizon, he thought he could see dim
flashes.
“Emperor preserve us,” said Varnus quietly as he crouched back down behind the crenellations.
He started as one of the enormous air defence turrets along the battlements suddenly came to
life, hydraulic servos whirring as the massive cannons rotated, the barrels angled high. What next?
thought Varnus, as more of the turrets rotated their giant cannons heavenward.
The floodlights that lit the whole area flickered suddenly, then died. The lights of the entire
palace turned off as the potent plasma reactors beneath it went dead. A fifty-block radius around the
palace went black instantly, swiftly followed by the rest of the city. Las-fire and tracer rounds
flashed through the darkness.
The air defence turrets went off-line.
Without the glare of the lights, crouching, as he was in pitch darkness, Varnus could see what
the turrets had been turning towards before they had died.
They looked like stars at first, but they burnt bright orange, and they were getting larger. What
the hell were they? Meteors?
Whatever they were, they were approaching the palace with sickening speed. Varnus could
almost feel the heat of the objects as they plummeted from the heavens.
Death rained down upon Shinar.
29
CHAPTER FIVE
Marduk smiled, exposing his sharp teeth as the Deathclaw drop-pod hurtled down through the
atmosphere of Tanakreg. The First Acolyte felt savage joy as the g-forces pulled at him. Burias
grinned back at him like some feral beast from across the other side of the plummeting attack
transport. Marduk pulled on his helmet, hearing the hiss as it slid solidly into place around his
gorget, and breathed in the recycled air of his power armour deeply.
He savoured these moments, the thrill just before battle commenced. He knew that Borhg’ash,
the daemon bound within the archaic chainsword at his side, felt his anticipation for the bloodshed
that was soon to erupt for the weapon was vibrating slightly. It too hungered for battle.
Warning lights flashed, and Marduk felt the powerful retro-thrusters scream as they kicked in.
He howled, the vox amplifiers fitted to his ornate helmet further enhancing the potency of the
daemonic sound. The other Word Bearers joined in with howls of their own as their systems were
filled with a sudden rush of adrenaline administered by their power armoured suits. Marduk relished
the sensation of the combat drugs flooding his system.
“Into the fray once more, my brothers!” bellowed Marduk. The other nine warriors strapped into
the Deathclaw roared their approval. “We are the true bearers of the righteous fury of the gods!”
Another roar. “And in their name, we kill! Kill! And kill again!”
With that the Deathclaw struck, smashing into the ground with bone jarring force, stabiliser
claws embedding deeply. Infernal mechanics grinded as the drop-pod was lifted up on its four
claws, and the bladed arcs of the circular floor slid back with a hiss.
Marduk was first out of the Deathclaw, his heavy boots slamming hard onto the cracked
plascrete, the booming of his vox amplifiers sounding out over the barking of his bolt pistol.
“Hate the infidels!” he roared, his pistol kicking in his hands as he fired. “Hate them as you kill
them! Hate them with your bolter and hate them with your fist!”
The towering hulk of the Deathclaw had slammed into a crenellated, terraced balcony on the
upper face of the palace. Other drop-pods screamed down from above, their hulls glowing with the
heat of the rapid descent. Seeing the enemy around him and feeling the fear emanating from them,
Marduk licked his lips.
He thumbed the activation rune blister on his chainsword and it screamed into life. He could feel
it trembling in his hand with barely suppressed hunger, and he gritted his sharpened teeth as he felt
the weapon bond with his flesh, tiny barbs piercing his armoured palm.
There were uniformed soldiers all around them, scattered across the cobbled open area atop the
crenellated defensive structure. Not that it was any defence against enemies that landed in their
midst, thought Marduk as he fired his bolt pistol into the soldiers. They were falling away in terror
from the Deathclaws that were landing with titanic force all around them.
“Death to the False Emperor!” he roared, charging into the midst of the foe. He carved left and
right, hacking and rending flesh with his screaming chainsword. Blood sprayed out as he tore
through the PDF troopers.
Blood and brain matter sprayed across Burias’s twisted visage as he swung the heavy, barbed
icon two-handed into the face of a soldier, and Marduk knew that the change would be upon him
shortly. Good, he thought. Let the mortals see the face of the daemon and know that hell beckoned
them.
30
The Word Bearers ripped though the PDF troopers, and Marduk saw a group of blue-armoured
warriors standing together, long lasrifles held to their shoulders.
“With me my brethren!” he roared as he raced across the blood drenched cobblestones towards
them. The soldiers fired, and las-fire streaked past Marduk’s head. With a roar of animal fury he was
amongst them. His chainsword ripped flesh and armour apart with ease, and he felt that the beast
bound within the chainsword was pleased at the bloodshed. It pulled at his arm, urging him to seek
more death for its whirring teeth. It has been too long since you tasted the blood of the heathens, he
thought.
Blood welled in the carefully designed catchments of the weapon and was sucked eagerly into
its inner workings. Veins pumped and throbbed along the length of the chainsword as the beast
within fed. Power surged through Marduk, flowing from the daemon weapon as it grew in strength.
He cleaved Borhg’ash into the chest of another victim, its sharpened teeth ripping apart flesh and
ribs in a shower of gore.
The change came over Burias suddenly. His face seemed to ripple and shimmer like a mirage on
a horizon. His features flickered back and forth between his own and the horned, bestial face of the
daemon Drak’shal. He opened his mouth wide as his lips curled back, exposing sharp fangs and a
long, flicking, bruised purple tongue. His bolt pistol dropped from his hand and was instantly
retracted to his hip, the length of chain linking the weapon to his belt withdrawing automatically.
His index and forefingers fused into thick, bladed talons, and he gripped the icon two-handed once
more. Burias dropped into a low, bestial crouch, even as he seemed to grow in stature as the
daemon’s power increased.
With a roar that was at once his own and the daemon’s, Burias-Drak’shal leapt from his crouch,
launching straight at a terrified PDF soldier who ineffectually fired off a frantic las-blast at the
creature. Burias-Drak’shal smashed the icon down onto the man’s head, killing him instantly.
Nevertheless, the daemonically possessed warrior punched his fist through the man’s chest and
raised the dead body up into the air, letting out an ungodly roar that made the substance of the air
ripple with warp spawned power.
“The gods themselves send us their aid to smite the infidels!” roared Marduk. “Behold the
majesty of their power!”
The battlements were almost clear. A blast from a lasrifle struck Marduk’s helmet, and his head
was jerked to the side. Snarling, he turned to face the attacker that had dared to shoot him.
Varnus swore as he waited for the las-lock to re-power. Though they fired powerful single bursts of
energy, the weapons were painfully slow between firing. Still, the shot had done little more than
irritate the towering monster that was leading the power armoured killers, so one more blast would
be unlikely to do anything but stall the inevitable. Varnus knew that death had come to Tanakreg
and that he had but moments left to live. Emperor protect my soul, he prayed.
The palace guard were being slaughtered. He saw one man explode as a bolt-round detonated in
his shoulder, spraying blood around him like a mist as he fell to the ground, the entire left side of his
torso missing. He saw another die instantly as one of the enemy clubbed him in the head with a
bolter, the force of the blow crashing his skull as if it were glass.
The hulking fiend he had shot rounded on him, stalking through the melee, and Varnus swore.
The monster towered over him. Varnus was in no way a small man, but he barely came halfway up
the beast’s chest. With a hum, the las-lock re-powered and he fired again at the huge Chaos Space
Marine. The shot was taken in haste and was not on target. Nevertheless, it struck the beast in his
wrist, and his accursed bolt pistol dropped from his hands.
Snarling in anger, Marduk cleaved the long lasrifle wielded by the infidel in two, and reached out
and grabbed him around the throat with his empty hand. He felt blood seeping from his wrist where
the wretch had blasted him, but it was already congealing. His hand almost encircled the man’s
31
entire neck, and he could feel the pathetic fragility beneath his fingers. Tendons and ligaments
strained as he exerted pressure.
Lifting the man into the air, his feet kicking uselessly half a metre from the ground, Marduk
drew him close to his helmeted visage.
“That hurt, little man,” he said, the vox amplifier booming his words into the face of the wretch,
“but this is going to hurt a lot more.”
With that, he hurled the man off the battlements.
“Your weapon, First Acolyte,” said one of the Word Bearers, and Marduk turned to accept his
bolt pistol, held reverently in the warrior’s hands. Without a word, he took the weapon.
Looking out over the battlements, Marduk saw scattered fighting on a lower tier of the bastion
some fifteen metres below, where the broken body of the infidel he had hurled had landed. He could
see fighting down there, but no Word Bearers. Curious, he thought.
“Warriors of the IV Coterie, with me,” he ordered. “The rest of you, cleanse this level of the
Imperial filth.”
“Burias-Drak’shal!” he roared, and the daemonically possessed warrior turned from his killing,
gore dripping thickly from his icon, arms and mouth. “With me.”
The twelve warriors of the IV Coterie extricated themselves from the killing, and jogged
towards the First Acolyte. Burias-Drak’shal stalked along with them, breathing heavily.
Marduk launched himself over the edge of the battlements, dropping down towards the lower
terrace. He landed in the midst of a firefight, and cobblestones cracked beneath his weight. He rose
up to his full height as his brethren landed around him.
“Death to the False Emperor!” he roared. The shout was repeated by several dozen of the
Imperial garbed warriors. Marduk saw that most of those that had shouted had ripped their clothing
to expose a crude, tattooed representation of the Latros Sacrum on their shoulders, the sacred
screaming daemon symbol of the Word Bearers legion.
He began laying around with Borhg’ash and his bolt pistol, carving flesh and planting boltrounds
through bodies. He didn’t pay too much attention to those he killed, and doubtless he and the
warriors of the IV Coterie slew as many of their cult followers as the Imperials, but it mattered
not—the souls of both would be welcomed by the gods of Chaos.
The gunfire suddenly ceased, and the remaining men dropped to their knees, gazing up at the
towering Chaos Space Marines with awe and reverence. Several had tears in their eyes. The Word
Bearers held their killing in check, waiting to see the First Acolyte’s reaction.
All except for Burias-Drak’shal, who stepped forward and smashed the icon into the head of one
of the cultists. The man’s skull crumpled and he fell without a sound.
“Burias-Drak’shal,” said Marduk quietly, and the daemon warrior looked up, snarling. His entire
body trembling, Burias-Drak’shal stepped back and dropped into a half-crouch, staring hungrily at
