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.
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.
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 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.
