Low Gothic by its vox-blaster.
“Speak not the name of the accursed one!” rasped the overseer, and slammed another handful of
needles into Varnus’s lower back. He had never felt such pain in his life, would not even have been
able to conceive of such agony. He convulsed and jerked on the ground. Abruptly the pain ceased,
leaving him feeling numb.
The overseer called out something in its own rasping dialect, and another of its kind stepped
forwards with a las-cutter, as Varnus shielded his salt-sore eyes from the white-hot light. The chains
connected to the collar of the man who still lay unmoving on the ground were cut, and Varnus felt
his own chain go slack for a moment. Then he was pulled violently to his feet by the chain, as the
severed links were fused together.
The slave was dead, or close to it, and was dragged away.
Two sharp notes were blown on a whistle, and Varnus quickly picked up his dropped rock and
shuffled to the side of the rained street with the other slaves of his worker gang. A detachment of
blood-red armoured Chaos Space Marines marched past, and the other slaves kept their gaze
lowered, as did the black clad, hunchbacked overseers.
36
The familiar burning feeling beneath the skin of his forehead itched, but Varnus resisted the urge
to scratch at it. He had seen other slaves claw at the eight-pointed star symbols beneath their flesh,
and terrible, painful welts had erupted.
A Discord, one of the floating monstrosities that accompanied every slave gang, blessedly silent
for a moment as the Chaos Marines had walked by, began once again to blare its cacophony of
unintelligible words and hellish sounds from its grilled speaker-unit. It hovered limply half a metre
off the ground, dragging behind it an array of mechanical tentacles as it moved ponderously up and
down the line of slaves. The sound was sickening, making Varnus’s insides twist with nausea.
A long, drawn out whistle sounded, and Varnus once again dropped his stone and lowered
himself painfully to the ground. An overseer walked along the line of seated slaves, holding a
muddy brown bottle with a straw out to each of the men in turn. When it came to his turn, Varnus
leant forward and sucked deeply from the tube. He almost gagged on the foul, thick liquid, but
forced himself to swallow. He had no idea what it was that the bastards fed them, but it was the only
form of sustenance that they were allowed.
“So, what were you before?” asked a low voice in a conspiratorial whisper, after the overseer
had moved on.
Varnus glanced surreptitiously at the man next to him. They were now chained together, since
the poor soul who had been chained in between them had just been dragged off. He thought that he
recognised the man from somewhere, but he couldn’t place the face.
“Enforcer,” said Varnus quietly.
“You got a name?” whispered the man.
“Varnus.” A whistle blew, and the slave gangers pushed themselves to their feet. “Yours?” he
risked, whispering.
“Pierlo,” said the man quietly.
Marduk was first off the Thunderhawk, striding purposefully down the assault ramp as it was
lowered from the stubbed nose of the gunship. He removed his helmet and breathed in deeply. The
air was thick with pollution, smoke and the taint of Chaos, and he smiled. Much had changed since
he had left the city of Shinar.
For the past weeks he had been engaged against various PDF armies far from the city, ensuring
that there was no military power upon the planet with the strength to launch a counter-attack against
the Word Bearers. While there were still dozens of areas of resistance scattered across the planet,
there was no single force that would prove a threat.
The skies were scarred with dust and smog, and the first cautious rumbles of thunder rolled
across the marred heavens. The fires of industry were burning fiercely in the city below.
The palace had changed. The spires and towers that had once formed the silhouette of the
bastion had been ripped down, replaced with brutal spikes and barbed uprights, and corpses were
strung up all over them. Marduk saw that the skinless forms of the kathartes, the daemonic,
cadaverous furies that accompanied the Host, were perched amongst the corpses. The vicious
harpies screeched and fought amongst themselves for the prime perches. The powerful air defence
turrets had been returned to activation, and they scanned the heavens. That was good: it would not
be long before the Imperial fleet arrived.
Purple-red veins pulsed beneath the surface of the once plain, pale grey, plascrete walls of the
upper bastion, and Marduk was pleased to see the symbols of all the great gods of Chaos artfully
painted in blood on the walls of the galleries he passed through.
He nodded to the honour guard flanking the vast glass doors, and walked past them out onto the
large, opulent balcony. Jarulek, surveying the ruin of a city below, did not acknowledge his
approach.
Marduk strode to the Dark Apostle’s side and knelt down beside him, his head lowered. After a
moment, Jarulek placed his hand upon the kneeling warrior’s head.
37
“The blessings of the dark gods of the Immaterium upon you, my First Acolyte. Rise,” said the
Dark Apostle. “You return having accomplished that which I requested,” he said. There was no hint
of a question in the remark, since there would be no need for Marduk to return had he not completed
the task appointed him.
“There is no fighting force upon Tanakreg that can interrupt the preparations, my lord,” said
Marduk. “I bring with me near to five hundred thousand additional slaves to aid in the construction.”
“Good. The slaves of this planet are weak. More than a thousand of them perish every day.”
“The Imperials are all weak,” said Marduk emphatically. “We will smash those soon to arrive, as
we smashed the pitiful resistance on this planet.”
“I have faith that you are correct, we will smash these new arrivals. Individually they are weak,
yes,” said Jarulek, “but together, they are not so. It is only through division that we weaken them.
This is why we must always propagate the cults. When the Imperium fears the enemies within its
own cities, that is when it is the most vulnerable.”
“I understand, my lord,” said Marduk, “though I do not believe that your Coryphaus sees it so?”
“Kol Badar does not need to. He is the warlord of the Host, and he fulfils that role perfectly.
Rarely has the Legion seen such a warrior and strategos,” he said, turning his disconcerting gaze
towards Marduk for the first time since they began speaking. “He brought in well over a million
slaves from his attacks against the cities in the north, you know,” said Jarulek softly, watching his
First Acolyte carefully. “He is and always will be a better warrior than you.”
Marduk tried to remain composed, but his jaw clenched slightly. He saw the dark amusement in
Jarulek’s eyes. The Dark Apostle kept watching him, seeming to Marduk to enjoy making him feel
uncomfortable, as he always did.
“You still feel the shame, don’t you?” asked Jarulek, cruelly.
“I could have beaten him,” said Marduk, “if you had given me the chance.”
Jarulek laughed softly, a bitter, cruel sound. “We both know that is a lie,” he said.
Marduk clenched his fists, but he did not refute the Dark Apostle.
Jarulek placed a forceful hand on one of Marduk’s battle-worn shoulder pads and turned him
towards the view over the rained city.
“Beautiful, is it not? The first stones of the tower have been laid, the ground consecrated with
the death of a thousand and one heathens, and the blood mortar is setting. The tower will breach the
heavens, the gods will be pleased, and this world will be turned inside out.” He turned towards
Marduk, a hungry smile on his scripture covered lips. “The time draws near. ‘As Sanguine Orb
waxes strong and Pillar of Clamour rises high, the Peal of Nether shakes, And Great Wyrms of The
Below wreak the earth with flame and gaseous exhalation. Roar of Titans will smite the mountains
and they shall tumble. Depths of Onyx shall engulf the lands, and then exposed shall lay The
Undercroft, Death and Mastery.’”
The First Acolyte’s brow creased. There was not one of the great tomes of Lorgar that he had
not memorised in its entirety, nor any of the scriptures of Kor Phaeron or Erebus that he did not
know word for word. As First Acolyte, he was expected to know the words of the Legion as well as
any Dark Apostle did. Any time that he was not killing in the name of Lorgar or aiding the Dark
Apostle in the spiritual guidance of the Legion was spent in study of the ancient writings, as well as
the required ritualistic penitence, self-flagellation and fasts. He prided himself on his knowledge of
the Sermons of Hate, and the Exonerations of Resentment, as well as thousands upon thousands of
other litanies, recitations, curses, denunciations and proclamations of the Dark Apostles through the
history of the Legion. He had spent countless hours poring over pronouncements, predictions and
prophecies witnessed in ten thousand trances, visions and dreams. Marduk had even studied the
scrawled recollections and scribed ravings of those warrior-brothers possessed by daemons, words
straight from the Ether, seeking the truth in them. And yet he had never before heard the prophecy
that Jarulek quoted.
38
“It is not written in any of the tomes within the librariox aboard the Infidus Diabolus,” said
Jarulek, seeing the look on Marduk’s face. “Nor is it written anywhere within the great temple
factories of Ghalmek or the hallowed flesh-halls of Sicarus. No,” said Jarulek smiling secretively,
“this prophecy is scribed on only one tome, and it resides in none of those places.”
Marduk felt his frustrations grow.
“A fleet of the great enemy draws close,” hissed Jarulek, his eyes narrowing.
“I have felt no tremor in the warp indicating their arrival,” said Marduk, knowing that he was
particularly sensitive to such things.
“They have not yet left the Ether. But I feel their abhorrent vessels pushing through the tides of
the warp. They will arrive soon. I have sent the Infidus Diabolus back to the warp.”
“You do not wish to engage the enemy fleet as it emerges?” asked Marduk.
“No.”
“You do not seek to engage them in the warp?” he asked, somewhat incredulously.
“No, I have no wish to risk the Infidus Diabolus in a futile battle of no consequence.”
“No battle against the great enemy is of no consequence,” growled Marduk. “So Lorgar spoke,
and so it is to be.”
“Speak to me in such a tone again and I will rip your still beating twin-hearts from your chest
and devour them before your eyes,” said Jarulek softly.
Jarulek held Marduk’s gaze until the First Acolyte could look no longer and dropped to his
knees, his head down.
“Forgive me, Dark Apostle.”
“Of course I forgive you, dear Marduk,” said Jarulek softly, placing his hand upon the First
Acolyte’s head.
Marduk felt a sudden lurch. By the way that the Dark Apostle withdrew his hand, he knew that
he had felt it too. He had felt that same feeling countless times, though much stronger in intensity, as
the Infidus Diabolus dropped out of warp space. Jarulek stepped away, and Marduk stood.
“The great enemy,” said the Dark Apostle, “has arrived.”
39
CHAPTER SEVEN
Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn of the 133rd Elysians crossed his arms over his chest as he
surveyed the flickering pict-screen. The image was hazy at best-at worst, nothing could be made out
at all. He shook his head.
“Your pict-viewer is of inferior quality, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn,” said the technomagos.
His voice was monotone, and barely sounded human at all. “The level 5.43 background
radiation of the planet c6.7.32 and Type 3 winds disrupt its capabilities.”
“Thank you, that is most helpful, Magos Darioq.” Havorn replied.
“You are welcome, Brigadier-General Ishmael Havorn,” said the techno-magos, clearly not
registering the sarcasm in the middle-aged general’s tone. The large form of Colonel Boerl, the
commander of the Elysian 72nd and Havorn’s second in command smirked.
The techno-magos, one of the pre-eminent members of the Adeptus Mechanicus of far distant
Mars, was a massive, augmented being. It was hard to know where the human ended and the
machine began. No features could be discerned underneath the low hood, just an unblinking red
light where an eye had once been.
From the back of his red robe, two huge, mechanical arms extended over his shoulders like a
pair of vicious, stinging tails of some poisonous insect. Another pair of servo-arms extended around
his sides. Formidable arrays of weaponry, heavy-duty machinery, power lifters and hissing claws
were constructed into them. The staff of office of the techno-magos was incorporated into one of the
servo-arms, a long-hafted, double-bladed power axe topped with a large, brass, twelve-toothed cog,
the symbol of the Machine-God. Dozens of mechadendrites hovered around him: long, metallic
tentacles fused to the nerve endings of his spine. They were tipped with dangerous looking, needlelike
protrusions and surprisingly dextrous grasping claws.
The man’s organic arms were wasted, useless things that he held crossed over his chest. It
looked like they lacked the strength to grasp anything any longer, and they were held immobile.
Clearly they had been made redundant by the hovering mechadendrites and servo-arms.
A diminutive, robed figure the size of a child stood before the magos, though nothing could be
seen of its form within its deep hood. It appeared to be connected to the Mechanicus priest by cables
and wiring. A floating servo-skull hung above the techno-magos, mechanics covering the right-hand
side of its cranium. Its unblinking, red eye watched the goings on within the command centre
unerringly.
With a slight shake of his head, Havorn squinted at the pict-screen again. Bleary images
flickered across the viewer of massed bulk carriers sinking slowly through the atmosphere of
Tanakreg, with escorts of gunships flying in figure-of-eight patterns around them. It was hard to
make out, but Havorn had seen scores of similar landings, and he could see exactly what was
occurring in his mind’s eye.
Imperial Navy attack craft, a variety of interceptors, fighters and assault boats, would have
swarmed from their launch bays aboard the twin Dictator Cruisers, the Vigilance and the Fortitude,
