Dark Apostle

'Emperor above,' swore Boerl as fresh shells fed into the twin-linked heavy bolters of the Dreadnought, and it unleashed its barrage of deadly fire. He leapt to the side, rolling as the heavy bolts tore through more of his men, and came to his feet running.

He blasted a Chaos Space Marine in the head with his lasgun as he moved, the shot striking the warrior's helmet, rocking him backwards but failing to pierce the powerful armour. Ignoring the reeling Chaos Space Marine, Boerl charged towards the towering Dreadnought. He reached to his belt and pulled loose a melta bomb as he neared the hellish machine annihilating his men.

The thing was huge and the ground reverberated with its step, servos whining. Skulls and helmets, rammed upon black iron spikes, adorned the machine's shoulders. There were helmets of loyal Space Marines there as well as dozens of skulls, some human, but many from various xenos creatures.

The Dreadnought swung a heavy, taloned fist at Boerl, flames gushing out from the underslung flamer on the massive, armoured arm. Ducking the blow, the colonel hissed as the flames washed over his back, and he almost fell to the ground as overwhelming pain assailed him. Gritting his teeth, he flicked the activation switch of the deadly melta-bomb and hurled it onto the armoured bulk of the machine. It struck a pitted and inscribed armoured shoulder plate above the heavy bolters that continued to roar, flames spitting from the barrels. It clanked loudly as it stuck fast, the powerful electro-magnets stuck fast to the metal.

Boerl ducked another swinging arm that would have ripped his head from his shoulders and leapt away before the melta-bomb did its destructive work. Rolling to see the results of his handiwork, his heart sank as the Dreadnought picked the grenade off its armoured bulk and flicked it away with its surprisingly dextrous power claw.

Boerl scrambled to his feet just as the Dreadnought swung its heavy bolters around to bear, and dozens of shots ripped through his armour. The Dreadnought continued to pump shot after shot into the colonel long after he was dead, keeping his body dancing in the air for a moment. Colonel Boerl's body was finally torn completely in half, and it fell to the ground, bloody and unrecognizable.

'Death to the False Emperor!' roared the Warmonger as it stepped forwards. It smashed a mechanical foot down onto the shattered body of the pathetic wretch, grinding it into the wet ground.

Where was this battle taking place? The thought swam through what remained of the Warmonger's ancient mind. Where was Lorgar? He scanned the battlefield quickly but could see no sign of the revered primarch. No matter. Here were enemies of his lord, and he would allow them no quarter.

The Warmonger opened up once again with his heavy bolters, seeing the weakling men before him ripped apart as he unleashed his deadly salvo. He began to advance once more, death roaring from his guns. One lightly armoured soldier stumbled too close, and the Dreadnought swept him up in its massive power claw, lifting the wretch high, so that all his brethren could see his demise. The Warmonger squeezed, servos in his claw whining, and the man broke. He was hurled to the ground, a bloody and very dead corpse.

'For the Warmaster!' roared the Dreadnought, and continued to kill.

Marduk chanted from the Epistles of Lorgar as he killed, filling the Word Bearers with fiery hatred for the weakling foe as they slew. He saw the Guardsmen fall away from him in horror, and he imagined that in death they heard the truth in his words: that the Emperor was a false deity, a fraud and a traitor, and that the bearers of the truth were murdering them. They cried out to their fraudulent god for mercy, but his impotence was clear when no salvation came to save them. In death they could see that only the gods of Chaos were worthy of worship.

The sheer audacity and arrogance of the foe astounded Marduk. Against any other foe, a combined assault of air-lifted infantry, supported by heavy weapons and timed to strike in unison with an elite force dropping from the sky, may have worked. To hammer the foe first with barrages from the air, these were good tactics against any other foe. Indeed, they were tactics that Kol Badar made use of frequently.

But to have the misconstrued belief that these tactics would work against the Word Bearers, Chaos Space Marines, and that these pitiful men could drive them from their positions was beyond the First Acolyte's comprehension.

It was true that the enemy were great in number. Hundreds more troops were dropping through the storm clouds every minute, though they were not as heavily armed or armoured (he scoffed at this even as he thought it) as were the first to land. These men were regular Imperial Guardsmen. But numbers meant nothing against Chaos Space Marines, and Marduk was certain that the battle would soon be over.