'Yes, my lord?' asked Marduk, frowning.
'Have any holy scriptures appeared on your flesh yet?'
'No, my lord. I bear none but the passage that you honoured me with,' he said, indicating his left cheek where the skin of the Dark Apostle had knitted with his own.
'Tell me immediately if words begin to form upon your skin, First Acolyte. They… they mark your readiness to proceed with your induction into the fold.'
'Thank you, my lord,' said Marduk, bemused. 'I will consult you immediately should such a thing occur.'
The salt plains were spread with Imperials as far as the eye could see. They advanced in a massive, sweeping arc towards the curved first line of the Word Bearers' defence. The first bulwark was wider than the other three that guarded the crumbled remains of the Imperial city and, but for the reserve led by Bokkar, every warrior of the Host stood upon it awaiting the enemy. Havoc squads hunkered down within those bunkers that were intact, placed at one hundred metre intervals.
Burias and Kol Badar stood side by side as they watched the advance of the foe. A mass of salt dust rose up behind the advancing army.
Kol Badar swung around, his one good eye staring coldly down at the Icon Bearer. His other eye, shattered by shrapnel, had been replaced with an arcane augmetic sensor by the chirurgeons.
'You question the orders of your Coryphaus, whelp?' he snarled.
'No, Coryphaus, but I feel Drak'shal raging to be unleashed.'
'Keep a rein on your daemon parasite, Burias. Its time will come soon.'
'I shall, Coryphaus.'
'They have more ordnance than we.'
'There is no sign of that Ordinatus machine, though.'
'No. Its range is not as great as their artillery's. If it advanced ahead of the main battle line, it would sustain damage. The methodology of the Adeptus Mechanicus is rigid. They deviate not at all from their ritual tenets and the modes of behaviour programmed into their mechanical heads. They will not risk damage to the machine.'
'You know a lot about the followers of the Machine-God, my lord?'
'I have learnt much from the Forgemasters of Ghalmek. And I fought alongside Tech-Priests of the Mechanicum during the Great Crusade, marching to battle alongside blessed Lorgar and the Warmaster,' he said, bitterness in his voice. 'And afterwards, I fought against them.'
'I am sorry to have dredged up painful memories, Coryphaus.'
Kol Badar waved away the words of the younger Word Bearers warrior-brother.
'Bitterness, anger and hatred is what fuels the fires within. If we forget the past then we will lose the passion to dethrone the False Emperor. To lose the fire is to fail in our sacred duty, the Long War,' growled Kol Badar. A thought struck him, was the Dark Apostle fuelling his own hatred of the First Acolyte to keep the fires within him stoked? He dismissed the thought instantly as irrelevant to the situation at hand.
The Coryphaus placed the talons of his power claw upon Burias's shoulder plate and exerted just enough pressure for the ceramite to groan.
'No, we do not attack just yet. But when we do, Burias,
'You do me much honour, Coryphaus,' said Burias, surprise on his face.
'You may be the lackey of a wretched whoreson, but you should not be held in the shadows because of it,' said Kol Badar.
Burias tensed and the warlord could see the daemon within flash in his eyes.
'The First Acolyte is on the cusp of greatness,' said Kol Badar, 'though it is a dangerous position and his fate is not yet determined. He may yet be deemed unworthy. Your precious master may fail at the last. Be wary, young Burias. Make sure you know where your loyalty lies, with the Legion, or with an individual.'
Burias stared at the Coryphaus for a moment before he gave a sharp nod of his head and Kol Badar released his crushing grip on the Icon Bearer's shoulder.
'Do well, and I will see you initiated into the cult of the Anointed,' said Kol Badar and he was pleased to see fires of ambition and greed come to life within the younger Icon Bearer's eyes. He had him.
'Go now. Gather the most vicious berserkers of the Host. I want eight fully mechanised coteries ready to roll out on my word. I feel that the enemy will bring the fight to us, and when they do, I want you ready to meet them head on.'
Marduk walked with the Dark Apostle towards a small, twin-engine transport, the pair of holy warriors accompanied by an honour guard. Daemon heads spewed smoke as its engines were revved and the doors hissed shut behind the Word Bearers. Marduk saw the Dark Apostle's eyes close in prayer or exhaustion.
On the short journey to the base of the Gehemehnet, Marduk marvelled at how the Imperial city had been transformed. From a bustling city of millions, it had been rendered into a wasteland of industry. Every building had been levelled and the fires of the Chaos factorums blazed in the dim light, spewing fumes and smog into the roiling sky. The ground was black with oil and pollution, and lines of slaves, each a thousand strong or more, wound through the black detritus and slag piles like multi-legged insects. Huge pistons drove up and down, conveyor belts piled with rock and bodies fed into hissing, steaming vaults and furnaces, and chains with links larger than battle tanks wound around immense wheels, turning the machineries of Chaos. It was almost like an infant version of Ghalmek, the daemonic forge monastery world, one of the great stronghold worlds of faith and industry of the Word Bearers, deep in the Maelstrom.
Black dust was kicked up as the shuttle landed and the honour guard stepped to the ground, scouring the area for any threat before they stood to attention. Marduk allowed the Dark Apostle to alight first and his dark eyes followed the movement of the older warrior priest as he stepped out of the shuttle. Even his movements were stiff, he thought. Truly it seemed the Dark Apostle was drained almost to the point of exhaustion. He smiled to himself.
They marched across the blackened earth towards the vast doors of a roaring furnace factorum, ignoring thousands of slaves and overseers that dropped to the ground to grovel before their master. Gears and chains groaned as the sliding doors were dragged aside and a blast of intense hot air radiated out from within, making his vision shimmer.
Workers prostrated themselves on the ground as the Word Bearers entered the massive factory. Huge vats of liquid metal were being poured into a vast mould, along with other liquids that flowed from dozens of spiralling tubes and distillery pipes. The super-heated liquid metal was doused with blood and clouds of heady steam rose.
'Now this, this is what sets my Gehemehnet apart from any other,' said Jarulek, his eyes alight.
A dozen huge chains lifted the mould into the air and it swung across the factorum to hang overhead. With a nod from Jarulek, it was released and it fell with bone shaking force ten metres to the floor of the factory. The entire area shuddered as it landed. The floor of the factorum cracked beneath the impact and small, spider web cracks spread across the surface of the mould. Searing light spilled from the branching cracks. Without the benefit of its inbuilt reactive auto-sensors in his helmet, Marduk squinted his eyes against the glare. More of the miniscule faults appeared across its surface, spilling light in all directions, and the mould began to crumble into tiny granules, falling to the ground, smoking and hissing.
The black mould exploded outwards suddenly, spreading scalding hot granules across the factorum, and blinding light filled the area. Overseers and slaves screamed and recoiled as burning particles seared into their skin and their retinas were burned away.
Even to Marduk the glare was painful and he hissed as super-heated granules burned the skin of his face. Still, he did not flinch, for he was determined not to show any weakness before the Dark Apostle.
A towering, glowing shape stood in the middle of the factorum.
'You have made a bell,' he said dryly.
Jarulek laughed, though the laughter tailed off into a hacking wheeze.
