Sons of the Emperor Read online

  The order was transmitted across the vox, though how many of Kalta-Ar's command remained he did not know. Scattered contact reports claimed the apparition was roaming the south-eastern chambers and passageways, which suited the Dark Apostle. His route lay north, though the speed with which the daemon had earlier relocated its manifestation forestalled any hope that they would progress entirely unmolested. The continuing, sporadic weapons-fire from across the half-built settlement also warned of the spreading slave rebellion.

  Led by the Dark Apostle, they ran, heading directly for the north gate. They passed through halls lined with partially sculpted statues, the slaves that had laboured at the figures nowhere to be seen. A threatening silence punctuated by the thud of their boots, distant shouts, the retort of bolters and the hiss of dead vox-links replaced the tick-tap-tick-tap that had irritated Kalta-Ar.

  Heading into an antechamber, the knot of Word Bearers came upon a surge of slaves spilling into the opposite doorway. Where before they had been dull-eyed mannequins, now their features were twisted with desperate anger. Frustration boiled into rage, Kalta-Ar's finger tightened on the trigger of his plasma pistol before he gave thought to the consequences. The ball of energy slammed into the closest slave, incinerating it from groin to throat, the burning remains hurled into its companions.

  'Fists and blades!' roared Arkula, sprinting into the suddenly howling mob. The warrior crashed into the slaves, trampling the first under armoured boots, lifting a second by the throat to dash its head against the wall.

  The others followed swiftly on the commander's heels, armoured fingers breaking bone and pulverising flesh. Kalta-Ar slashed and stabbed with the sacrificial knife, panting with each blow. The ritual blade burned with inner light as the lifeforce of its victims seeped into the etched metal, the escaping soulstuff enriching the Dark Apostle with growing vigour. He grinned as he cut his way through the press, emerging from the back of the mob into an empty corridor. Around his brothers, bodies were piled against the walls, distended and distorted by inhuman blows.

  Elation lasted only a moment. A tenebrous mass billowed through the antechamber, twitching the limbs and dead eyes of the slaves with its passage. Mouths with dozens of lightning-fangs opened in the cloud as it fell upon Apall-Af. It seemed as though an invisible blade punctured the Word Bearer's gut and lifted him, erupting through his backpack in a shower of ceramite splinters, shattered bone and blood spray. Armour plates fractured as maws sank their insubstantial teeth into the legionary, snapping limbs and rending bloody welts into the flesh within.

  His agonised bellows blanketed the vox for a second until Karla-Ar cut the link. Arkula threw himself at the daemon, chainsword snarling. A bladed limb snared out, taking off his head with an almost contemptuous swipe.

  'With me!' cried Kalta-Ar. The Dark Apostle turned and ran again, barrelling along the narrow passageways that led along the northern wall. He heard the thunder of his subordinates' footsteps just behind, the wheeze of powered armour pushed to its limits. He reasoned that if the daemon had been summoned within the boundary of the rune-shield, perhaps it might not be able to pass without.

  Of course, that left them prey to the other warp denizens that haunted the locale, but the Dark Apostle was willing to risk an unknown threat to escape a very definite one.

  He reached a circular window, its chiselled frame ready to accept metalwork in the form of the Eightfold Star of the gods. A guttural, wet noise from Aakas' vox betrayed his loss to the pursuing daemon just metres behind. The Dark Apostle changed direction, bounding up to the sill of the window. He did not look back as he plunged out into the ruddy gloom. A frisson of static washed through him, a sign that he had passed through the boundary wards.

  Sparing not a glance behind, eyes fixed on the arch-tipped promontory ahead, Kalta-Ar pounded across the open ground. Every step was accompanied by the expectation of a semi-substantial claw sliding into his back, or the tell-tale flutter in his thoughts that warned of a daemonic gaze falling upon him.

  He heard the exhalations of a rebreather and finally spared a look back.

  Isaikash was just a few paces behind. Beyond him a scattering of other red-armoured figures emerged from doors and windows, sprinting across the featureless expanse. Of the apparition, there was no sign.

  Kalta-Ar did not slow until he came to the angular ward-stones that circumscribed the summit of the hill. Within the ring, more Word Bearers oversaw the continuing labours of other slaves piling stones upon each other to raise a temple about the portal gate.

  One wore an ornate suit of Terminator armour, its massive armour plates marked with the symbols of a first acolyte. The sigils were known to Kalta-Ar.

  'Marduk!' he called out, scattering slaves from his path. 'Where is the Urizen?'

  'Calm yourself, brother,' said Marduk, approaching the Dark Apostle with hand raised to halt him.

  'You forget your rank, first acolyte,' growled Kalta-Ar, coming to a stop a few metres from Marduk. His brothers pounded into the arch-temple and turned, weapons trained back towards the Beneficta Diabola.

  'I am here by the command of Masters Jarulek and Erebus, and I speak with their authority, Kalta-Ar.' Marduk's own guard gathered about him as he continued. 'What is the meaning of this intrusion?'

  'Something powerful, summoned by the slaves, I think. A daemon of considerable wrath. It has already slain half of my company.'

  An angry growl issued from the first acolyte as he raised a long-bladed chainsword. 'And you led it here, to our Lord's abode?'

  While Marduk snapped commands to his warriors, Kalta-Ar found Isaikash among his brethren.

  'How many are left?' he asked his fellow Word Bearer.

  'Seventeen have made it to the mound, Apostle. I see no others on the plain.'

  Kalta-Ar looked out across the expanse between the hill and the Beneficta Diabola. Here and there an armoured body sprawled on the ruddy ground. Dark mists formed close to the corpses, daemonstuff drawn by the escaping souls. Soon other things would come to feed.

  'There, Apostle!' The shout came from the right, where Ukna-Tav pointed to the north-western comer of the site. A Word Bearer vaulted a low wall, a stream of naked humans flowing after. The legionary turned and fired his bolter, scything down the first handful of slaves to venture after him.

  As he turned to continue for the mound, the ground beneath the Word Bearer darkened. Like tar bubbling from a pit, seeping blackness flowed up his legs, swiftly engulfing him to the waist. The legionary fired down into the morass but his bolts simply disappeared without exploding. The thick blackness continued upwards, rivulets of shadow that snaked along his arms and around his throat.

  Growing, the umbra lifted the legionary from the ground, snapping an arm at the elbow, the bolter within his grip falling from the fingers. Kalta-Ar could not suppress an empathic wince as a leg contorted acutely, assuming an unnatural angle. The legionary's vox was clearly not functioning, and he was thankful they were spared more inhuman noises of painful death. Limb-snapping contortions wracked the armoured figure, almost tying the warrior into a knot, ceramite broken, bones shattered.

  The daemon-shade dropped the remains to the floor and heaved itself together into the approximation of a human form, though twice as tall as the legionary it had just slain. Tenebrous wings flowed from its back as it advanced, arms ending in spear-like talons.

  'What have you brought upon us?' Marduk's voice at his shoulder made Kalta-Ar turn, hearts racing. He dared only a glance at the first acolyte before returning his gaze to the spectre advancing with slow, grim purpose across the level plain.

  'I had no choice,' said the Dark Apostle. 'It would have slain us all and come for you without warning.'

  'Ah, so it was for our wellbeing, was it?'

  'Look at it, brother! This is beyond us. We need the Urizen to face such a creature. You must call him.'

  'Must?'

  'This is not the time for your vanity, Marduk,' snapped Kalta-Ar. The th
reat of being ripped to pieces by an unstoppable daemon outweighed any trepidation at offending one of the First Chaplain's favoured servants. He pointed to the dormant portal arch. 'Can you reach Lorgar?'

  'The primarch has... higher concerns than your survival, Kalta-Ar.'

  The bark of bolters drew their attention back to the ring of wardstones, where Kalta-Ar's warriors met the incoming apparition with a hail of fire. Bolt-rounds detonated across its form, but the fire of their fury disappeared into its darkness.

  As it neared, the daemon fluctuated, its smoky exterior becoming like a blizzard, a creature of whiteness with two ebon-black eyes. Forks of black lightning leapt from an outstretched hand, rippling through the body of a Word Bearer. Greasy smoke issuing from rents in his war-plate, the legionary collapsed.

  'We have to fall back across the portal bridge,' said Kalta-Ar. 'We must fetch Lorgar.'

  'Fetch, Kalta-Ar?'

  The voice came from behind them, as pure as molten gold in the Dark Apostle's soul. Its tones lifted his spirit in an instant, filling him with warmth.

  He turned, as did the others around him. The archway glowed with power, showing a vista of a gigantic citadel-cathedral through the haze within its black frame. In front stood a gigantic figure, thrice the height of the legionaries, a golden-skinned entity wrapped in cloak and robe of flaming rune-shapes that swirled from its body. In one hand it held a wickedly spiked mace that throbbed with black power. The other bore a rod of intricately wound metal, tipped with a three-eyed skull layered with golden sigils that constantly weaved about each other. Eyes of uniform azure burrowed into Kalta-Ar.

  'I heard your woe, my son.'

  The voice washed through the Dark Apostle like a soothing balm, stilling his agitation, strengthening his resolve. Still, the presence of his primarch was near overwhelming and he fell to his knees, head bowed.

  'My Lord Aurelian, forgive my weaknesses. A creature of daemonic spite has disrupted the great works here.'

  'I see no daemon.'

  Kalta-Ar glanced back towards his brothers. The entity that had pursued them had reached the top of the hill amid a storm of bolter fire. It cast aside legionaries with sweeps of glittering claws, leaving tattered remains draped across the stonework of the outer shrine.

  'This is no daemon.' Lorgar raised his rod, beckoning to the blood-stained whirlwind tearing through the last of the Dark Apostle's warriors. 'Come to me. Brother.'

  With a last flurry of activity that turned another legionary to shards of ceramite and ribbons of flesh, the apparition coalesced into a recognisable figure. It was of equal height to the daemon primarch, clad in black battleplate with long-taloned gauntlets. A pair of wings stretched from its ornate backpack, fashioned as intricate metallic raven feathers. The face was as pale as snow, gaunt, with eyes as dark as coal, framed by shoulder-length black hair.

  Kalta-Ar felt his breath dying in his lungs as he looked up at the unmistakeable features of Corvus Corax, the primarch of the Raven Guard. A flurry of questions flooded his thoughts but all remained unanswered as Corax spoke.

  'What has happened to you, brother?'

  'I have ascended,' said Lorgar. He indicated Corax with a twitch of his rod. 'I might ask the same of you.'

  The Ravenlord strode forwards, intent on Lorgar Aurelian. Kalta-Ar and his warriors scattered before him, grateful to be free of his wrath. Marduk and his coterie closed about their primarch but a look sent them away.

  'I am what I always have been,' said Corax. 'I am vengeance incarnate. I am justice delivered. This place, beyond the veil, has revealed what we all are. Underneath the veneer of humanity our father crafted for us, we are of the warp.'

  'Have you come to make oath to the powers that are your true creator?'

  'No. I swore to destroy all Chaos taint from the galaxy. You will be the first fallen brother to die beneath my blades.'

  'I am not the creature you fought at Isstvan,' said Lorgar, raising his mace.

  'Nor am I!'

  Kalta-Ar barely followed the lunge of Corax, so swift it was. A black wind threw him aside as dark fire crackled from the rod of Lorgar. With a thunderous shockwave that hurled the Word Bearers to the ground, the two demigods clashed.

  * * *

  After a long life of bloodshed and devotion to the True Gods there was little that awed Kalta-Ar. The sight of the two primarchs battling within the empyrean sphere left him shocked and breathless.

  Infused with the raw primordial force, the combatants were ablaze with power. Corax seemed a towering storm wreathed in white lightning, the cloud formed of multitudinous ravens. Their cawing was deafening, the flash of their talons and beaks the spark of the tempest.

  Into the shadow Lorgar rose like a fireball, alight with a tornado of burning rune shapes. Meteoric sigils rained down on the raven tempest, cleaving ember-edged furrows through the dense mass. They slammed into the buildings around the bridge-arch, shattering masonry, incinerating the corpses of Corax's victims.

  The Ravenlord struck back, hails of flaring claws ripping the air itself, leaving rents through the rune-robe of the Urizen. Each stroke left a shriek in its aftermath that shredded the nerves as much as the talons shredded Lorgar's immaterial form.

  Kalta-Ar flinched when the sweeping head of the Word Bearer's mace slammed into the chest of his storm-wreathed foe. The impact was greater than any thunderclap, levelling the walls around them.

  Rolling to his back, shattered stone pouring from his armour, the Dark Apostle watched the titanic combatants soar past, Corax with a quartet of gleaming spear-talons driven through Lorgar's throat. The Urizen tried to lash out with his mace but was held close by the Ravenlord's inhuman grip.

  Together they crashed to the ground, their impact flattening again the few Word Bearers that had regained their feet.

  'The portal-bridge!'

  Marduk's shout drew Kalta-Ar's attention to the wavering energy field within the archway. Dark sparks rippled across its fluctuating surface. It was visibly weakening.

  'We cannot be trapped here,' declared the Dark Apostle stepping towards the waning portal.

  'It is sustained by the Urizen's will,' declared Marduk, intercepting him. 'It means our master is losing his power!'

  The two primarchs had assumed fully humanoid form again in the heart of the crater their fall had made. Lorgar's left shoulder sagged, his rod swaying low in his grasp. Rune-shapes crawled across his form, no longer a robe of office but forming armoured plates etched with warp-symbols.

  Corax flexed claws like sword blades, his expression pitiless as he took a step towards Lorgar.

  Marduk opened fire.

  The flare of his combi-bolter hit the Ravenlord in the chest and face, a welter of detonations that rocked his stride. Kalta-Ar fired his plasma pistol on instinct, the blast hitting Corax in the midriff, splashing cerulean energy across his ornate black war-plate.

  Other fire joined it, missiles and more bolts from Marduk's guard.

  Lorgar summoned a nimbus of power and threw out a shield of force that lifted Corax from his feet, buckling his wings in the unearthly hurricane. The Ravenlord became a flock once more of fire-eyed black birds, but the swell of Lorgar's will continued to hurl the other primarch's incarnations upwards, scattering them to the sky.

  'Quickly, our lord,' shouted Marduk.

  Lorgar lumbered towards them, his wounds streaming tiny crimson runes like blood.

  Kalta-Ar looked up. The Ravenlord gathered again into a single mass, a dark comet headed directly for them.

  The Urizen was first through the portal, his massive frame leaving a shadow of his passing as the other Word Bearers dashed through after. Kalta-Ar lunged the last few strides, throwing himself headlong into the miasma under the arch as chill shade swallowed him.

  He found himself in a large chamber, colourful mosaic underfoot, the walls covered with fresh murals, white vaulted ceiling and domes far above. Part of the Templum Inficio. He had no time for his surroundings
, eyes drawn back to the gate.

  Shrieking, the raven flock scratched and pecked, but they could not pass the warp barrier.

  Lorgar glared at the apparition on the far side, chest heaving as though out of breath, his head crowned with a halo of black warp fronds.

  Corax assumed his mortal shape again, one cheek bloodied and bruised, his eye almost closed. There was much damage to his armour, but he leaned close to the portal, eyes boring through the divide.

  'I have your scent now, Lorgar,' growled the Ravenlord. His face contorted with monstrous rage. 'I will find you, Lorgar! I will destroy you and every vessel you have filled with your taint!'

  Lorgar staggered away and the portal arch fell dull, leaving only bare stone within its pillars.

  'We can assemble a force and return, our lord,' said Marduk, hurrying after the primarch.

  'All is not lost,' promised Kalta-Ar, not wishing to seem any less dedicated. 'I will rebuild the Beneficta Diabola.'

  Their entreaties continued as they followed Lorgar through the corridors and halls, heading towards the centre of the grand construction spreading across their new capital on Sicarus. Stairs took them high, to the tower at the heart of everything. Black doors opened at Lorgar's approach and he strode within, no word uttered, no backward glance.

  With a noise that echoed in Kalta-Ar's soul as much as his ears, the doors slammed shut, leaving him and Marduk on the threshold. There was no handle, no keyhole, nothing by which they might open the edifice.

  A white Colchisian rune burned into life upon the door, and another.

  'Deny fate,' read Kalta-Ar. He turned to the first acolyte. 'What does that mean?'

  Marduk took several steps back and looked towards the pinnacle of the otherworldly tower. Golden fire burned from the summit.

  Others were hurrying from the surrounding cloisters, demanding to know what had happened. Kalta-Ar recognised Kor Phaeron amongst them and suppressed a groan.

  'What does this herald?' asked one of the approaching Word Bearers.

  'We wait for his return,' replied Marduk. 'Until then, the great work must continue.'