Dark Apostle

He recalled the conversation he had had with the Dark Apostle mere hours earlier, and his face flushed with the thought of the rebuke he had received.

'Speak as the Coryphaus, Kol Badar, not as yourself Jarulek had scolded him gently.

Kol Badar had clenched his heavy jaw tight, looking down. 'What would you have me say, Dark Apostle?' he had asked, his voice sounding course and crude in his ears after Jarulek's velvet words.

'I would have you speak for the Host, as the Coryphaus. Does the Host accept him?'

'The Host follows your word without fault, my lord.'

'Of course. Meaning?'

'Meaning that they embrace and revere him, for it is your will for them to do so,' he had said, his voice thick.

'And speaking as yourself?' Jarulek had asked, softly.

'He is an upstart newborn risen beyond his position. He has not been with us from the start. He did not fight at our side as we assailed the cursed False Emperor's lapdogs on Terra.' Kol Badar had fumed. 'You should have let me kill him.'

Jarulek had chuckled at that. 'A newborn, I have not heard you call him that before. He has fought against the False Emperor mere centuries less than you and I, old friend.'

Kol Badar's face had darkened. 'He was not there at the start.'

'No, but a long time has passed since then: ten thousand years in the world of mortals.'

'We do not live in the realm of mortals.' Kol Badar had replied. Time held no sway over the warp: a warrior may spend a month within its unstable boundaries, emerging to find that the galaxy had changed, that countless decades had flown by. To Kol Badar, the siege of the Emperor's palace felt like mere centuries ago, not the staggering ten thousand years that had passed since that time, and his memories of it were strong.

'He has been chosen by the gods.' Jarulek had said. 'Do not straggle against their will, Kol Badar. They are unforgiving masters, and a soul like yours would be an exquisite plaything. You are my most loyal and honoured warrior - do not let your hatred of him be your ruin.'

A mournful, tolling bell echoed across the expanse of the cavaedium. Silence descended, and not a movement stirred through the massed ranks of the Word Bearers. This was the start of the exhortation, and the entire Host stood in silence, awaiting the arrival of the Dark Apostle.

Kol Badar was a warlord, a killer and a destroyer of worlds. But, along with the rest of the Host, he would wait, patient, unmoving and in silence, for the arrival of the holy Dark Apostle. If it took a minute or a week, he would stand immobile. And so he waited.

'Go,' said the voice over the comm-channel. Reacting instantly, black-armoured figures of the Shinar enforcers stepped out of the gloom of the narrow alleyway. Lieutenant Varnus levelled and fired his combat issue shotgun at the heavy locking mechanism of the rusted door. The sound of the weapon echoed deafeningly, and a fist-sized hole was punched through the metal. Varnus slammed a heavy boot into the door, swinging it violently open, and surged through, the other enforcers close behind him.

The door opened to a refuse strewn corridor, dully lit by humming glow-globes. A man sitting with his feet up on the crude synthetic table looked up, eyes wide, lho-stick hanging limply from his mouth. A second blast from the shotgun threw him backwards, slamming him against the wall in a spray of blood.

'Entrance gained,' said Varnus, opening up the comm-channel.

'All teams have entered the complex. Proceed as planned,' said the captain in reply.

'Yes, sir,' said Varnus. He mouthed an obscenity under his breath once the comm-channel was closed.

Moving in a half crouch up the corridor, he stepped quickly over the scattered piles of twisted metal and broken masonry.

'Smells like a damn sewage pit,' muttered one of the enforcers. Varnus was forced to agree. He indicated sharply to a closed door as he passed it. A pair of enforcers behind him took up positions to either side of it. One kicked it open, and the two of them moved in, shotguns raised. The sharp, focused beams of light from their helmets swung around to locate any threats. The other two enforcers in the team moved up in support of Varnus. He paused at the end of the corridor, and glanced quickly around the corner: another empty, sparse corridor, this one with a single door leading from it. Glow-globes overhead flickered weakly.

Varnus stepped around the corner and moved forwards cautiously, the focused beam from his helmet piercing the dark comers that the weak illumination of the glow globes failed to light. Rodents scurried away from the brightness. The stench was overpowering.

'Who in the Emperor's name would want to hide out here?' remarked one of his team, swearing colour-fully.