Dark Apostle

In between the ranks of Martian foot soldiers were tracked crawlers, one for every phalanx. They were Ordinatus Minoris crawlers, and each was the length of three Leman Russ battle tanks. They had two, wide track units, one at the front and one at the rear, and between these was supported the mass of the war machine. Heavy girders and steel struts supported huge weapons, and each crawler had dozens of red-robed adepts and servitors as crew. Steel ladders rose to the control cabins that were offset from the main guns. Laron did not recognise the weapons that these behemoths of steel and bronze bore, but the massive, steaming couplings and humming generators upon their backs spoke of immense contained power.

But these were as nothing to the sheer scale of the crawler that was emerging slowly from a lander of truly giant proportions.

'Emperor above,' said Elias. 'Would you look at the damn size of that thing!'

It bore a resemblance to the Ordinatus Minoris crawlers in the way that a fully grown adult bears a resemblance to its mewling newborn. It rolled forward on what must have been sixteen tracked crawler units, led by a stream of tech-priests. The size of the smaller tracked crawlers were rendered insignificant next to the immense vastness of the Ordinatus machine.

It was the size of a city block and was protected with thick layers of armoured plating. More than ten storeys of platforms rose up around the massive central weapon that the Ordinatus supported, a weapon the size of a small cruiser that ran down the entire length of the immense machine. Criss-crossing lattice works of steel supported gantries running around the circumference of the weapon, and a pair of quad-barrelled anti-aircraft guns rotated atop the control cabin above the highest deck level. Giant, claw-like, spiked arms were held aloft on either side of the Ordinatus, and Laron guessed that the huge piston engines behind them would drive them into the ground when the Ordinatus was readying to fire, to give the machine additional stability. That a thing that size needed stabilising legs was testament to the awesome power that it could unleash.

'Impressive,' said Laron somewhat reluctantly.

The sergeant put a hand to his ear as his micro-bead clicked.

'The Valkyries are ready and waiting, captain. They fly on your say-so.'

'Good. Colonel Boerl will be joining us on the drop.'

'I feel safer already.'

'Cut the crap, Elias,' snapped Laron. Even with Elias, he had his limits. The colonel of the 72nd was a hardened veteran, and he would hear nothing against the man.

'Let's go take those damn highlands.'

He raised his crozius before him. Blood hissed along the length of the hallowed staff of office, boiling and spitting under the surging electricity coursing up the haft. Once it had represented faith in the Imperium, belief in the Emperor and the optimistic confidence that the Crusades pushing out from great Terra would bring enlightenment to the galaxy.

Spitting, he sneered at the pathetic sentiment. Now he stood on Terra once more, as the greatest battle in the history of mankind was unfolding.

His crozius was dedicated to beings of far greater power than the deceitful Emperor. It represented faith as it always had, inspiring devotion and fervour in the Legion as it smote the non-believers, but this was a far more pure faith than merely a shallow belief and optimism that looked to a bright future for mankind.

This was true faith. The Emperor had been wrong. There were omnipotent gods in existence, and they wielded power beyond imagining. No cold, distant deities that watched the plight of their followers from afar, these gods were active and could affect a very real physical presence in the galaxy.

His crozius had been consecrated in the blood of those sacrificed to these great powers, ignorant fools who would not accept or embrace the true powers within the universe.

And now he fought on Terra, alongside holy primarchs, mighty heroes and noble warriors who had embraced the true faith.

The eager young Captain Kol Badar looked at him, passion and fervour in his eyes. His First Acolyte, the clever Jarulek, looked to him for the word to engage. Raising his sanctified crozius of the true faith high into the air, he incanted from the Epistles of Lorgar. With a fiery roar, the Word Bearers of the XII Grand Company launched themselves once more into the bloody fray.

The Warmonger was stirred from his thoughts of battles long past as his receptive sensors picked up faint reverberations in the air from over the horizon to the east.

'The enemy approaches, First Acolyte Marduk,' he intoned via vox transmission. 'The brethren wait in readiness.'

BOOK TWO:

CONTENTION

'Victory attained through violence is victory indeed. But when the enemy turns on itself - that is the essence of true, lasting victory!'