Dark Apostle

'Damn thing hurt,' he said. He had returned to the lines of the Word Bearers, driving a battered enemy tank through the ranks of battle servitors, crushing them under its tracks, but they did not target it. It was an Imperial tank and it was not in their programming to raise a weapon against it. As it drew near the Host's lines a missile had sent it spinning into the air. Burias had crawled from the flaming wreckage and told a laughing Marduk of his tale.

He had gripped onto the tank as it thundered over him and had crawled across its hull before ripping away a hatch and slaughtering the occupants. Then he had ripped the driver's seat from its housing so that he could fit his bulk into the compartment before driving back towards the lines of the Host.

'I saw you speaking with the Coryphaus,' said Marduk.

Burias looked over at him and Marduk raised his eyebrows.

'Yes, First Acolyte.'

'Of what were you speaking?'

'Things of little consequence,' said Burias. 'The deployment of our Havoc squads, the use of the slaves.'

Marduk narrowed his eyes. The Icon Bearer was concealing something. He was a conniving snake, and Marduk had no doubt that he would turn on him if that would benefit him.

'The Dark Apostle comes!' Marduk heard one of the warrior-brothers exclaim, and he turned, his thoughts pulled away from Burias, inclining his head to witness his lord's arrival.

He floated out of the roiling, black, lightning filled clouds, surrounded by a glistening nimbus of light, descending gently towards the battle like a glorified angel. He was borne aloft upon a disc-like daemon pulpit, one hand upon the spiked railing at its front. Daemons swirled around him, filling the air with their keening screams as they scythed around the Dark Apostle in intricate weaving patterns.

They were daemons blessed by Tzeentch, the Great Changer of the Ways, and their bodies were long and smooth, rimmed with thousands of jagged barbs. Hunters of the Ether, they resembled the ray-fish that existed in the oceans of countless worlds, sleek and deadly. Their bodies were ovular in shape and long barbed tails swished behind them as they cut through the air, fleshy wing tips rising and falling deceptively slowly. Colours played over their dark hides, glistening patterns of iridescent shades. Each was the length of three men and they cut through the air in a deadly dance, spiralling down in steep dives before turning into climbing corkscrews, interweaving with the paths of others of their kind.

Smaller versions of the screaming daemon-rays, no larger than a hand span across, whipped around the Dark Apostle, spiralling around him like a dense shoal of frenzied fish.

Jarulek held his crozius of the dark gods high before him and a roar rose up to greet him from the assembled Host.

He certainly knew how to make an entrance, Marduk thought wryly.

'The way you appear to the Host is paramount, First Acolyte,' he remembered Jarulek lecturing him. 'Always you must project an aura of authority and religious awe. We are beyond the warrior-brothers of the Legion, we are the chosen of the gods, exalted in Lorgar's eyes and raised beyond the morass of the lower warrior. Our warriors must worship us. And why? We must appear glorified and exalted so that always we can inspire utter devotion in the Host. A warrior fuelled with faith fights with twice the hatred and twice the strength of one that does not, and he will fight on past the point when he would otherwise give in to death. A Dark Apostle must always inspire such devotion in his flock,' said Jarulek, his eyes filled with passion and belief.

'That is the reason that we need a Coryphaus, Marduk. The Dark Apostle must be separate and aloof from the Host to maintain the utter devotion of the warrior-brothers. He must not be one of them, he must be beyond them. The Coryphaus is the war leader of the Host, but he is also the conduit through which the Dark Apostle can gauge the feeling of the Host. For once you take on the mantle of Dark Apostle, you must be one apart from the Legion. Always you must project a holy aura that will inspire utter, fanatical loyalty and devotion.'

The full power of the Dark Apostle's words were driven home to Marduk as he felt the spirit of the Host rise as Jarulek made his descent upon the back of the hellish daemon construct.

The daemon pulpit was a work of mad genius, formed from the lucid dreams of the Dark Apostle's mind and birthed in the Immaterium before it had been dragged into the material realm to serve his will. Its skeleton was of blackest iron and the ribs of the metallic frame formed an eight-pointed star beneath his feet. Between these was living, red-raw flesh and muscle, and it was upon this that the Dark Apostle stood.