Dark Apostle

There were a thousand and one jobs that needed his agreement, his sign-off and his input, and he had found it overwhelming. He was floundering and he couldn't see how he could get on top of it all. It was difficult at first to know what truly needed his attention and what could be delegated to his captains. His respect for Havorn had grown immeasurably as he realised the responsibilities of command that must weigh upon him. But he never showed it. He was always the tough old campaigner and none doubted his judgement.

His captains: it still sounded strange to him. He was no longer one of them. Now he was their colonel and the easy camaraderie he had once shared with them was long gone. He grinned at that. In truth, there had never been any easy camaraderie with most of the other captains. They had always seen him as an arrogant bastard, the "glory boy" captain of the storm troopers. And they were mostly right.

It felt good to be in the air again and away from the pressures of his position, and he hated slogging along on foot. That was grunt's work. He was a glory boy, damn it, and if they were going to say it anyway, he might as well live like one.

'You think the enemy is truly retreating, colonel?' asked the commissar, though Laron knew that he already knew the answer. This was for the benefit of the men around them. He noted that in die presence of other members of the 72nd the commissar left out the acting part of his title. No doubt that was something else to do with motivation. He was a clever bastard.

'It's been hard and we have lost a lot of good men, but the enemy are falling back. I just want to see the traitors fleeing with my own eyes. The Emperor is with us! We will make them pay for the deaths of the men of the 72nd.'

He saw a slight smile in the eyes of the commissar as he played along.

'Motivation is vitally important,' the commissar had said earlier, 'whether it comes from the threat of a bullet, the impassioned speech of an officer, or propaganda from the mouth of a commissar, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that your soldiers fight and that they have fire in the bellies. For some that comes from faith, for others it is from outrage. It doesn't matter. But you must never miss an opportunity to inspire your men. It's not much, but a word here and there goes a long way with the common soldiers.'

These conversations with the commissar had been playing on his mind and he had begun to wonder if that was another reason why Havorn had attached the commissar to his staff, to teach him the power of motivation in all its forms.

'By the Emperor's name, they will pay,' said Laron once more.

The view on the grainy, black and white pict screen had been astonishing as Marduk's Thunderhawk made its approach into Shinar. It was almost unrecognisable from the original Imperial city. From this high in the air, nothing of it could at first be seen, but the immense Gehemehnet tower that rose into the atmosphere. It was as if some astral deity had hurled a mighty spear into the planet, skewering it. It could be seen for thousands of kilometres all around when the air was clear.

Beneath the tower, lower in the atmosphere and hanging directly over Shinar, was a thick, oily, black smog. It was roiling and contorting as if alive and it was swirling around the tower that rose in its midst. The tower was the very centre of the gaseous maelstrom and the fumes were thickest there, the winds strongest.

Nothing could penetrate the thick, noxious smog cloud, not even the Thunderhawk's sensitive, daemon infused sensor arrays. Marduk knew that the Gehemehnet was creating a wide cone of warp interference that spewed out through the atmosphere and beyond. This interference would effectively make the entire side of the planet all but invisible to the enemy. Just as he thought of this, the Thunderhawk's pict-screen flickered and degenerated to static. The power of the Gehemehnet was indiscriminate in whose equipment it affected. The gunship was still around two hundred kilometres from Shinar, but had clearly entered the wide cone of disruption. The Thunderhawk had no need for concern - it did not rely upon technical arrays and its witch sight saw all the more clearly within the warp field.

Marduk felt the field close over him and his twin hearts palpitated erratically for a moment, his breath catching in his chest. It was joyous to feel the power of the Immaterium wash over him. He heard the whispers of daemons in the air. He felt his sacred bond to the warp strengthen and his power with it. The Dark Apostle was wielding some powerful faith to have created a warp field of such potency.