Dark Apostle

Burias snarled a wordless reply. Drak'shal was rising within him. With a final nod, he turned and jogged towards the awaiting Land Raider. Before the assault ramp had even hissed completely closed, the column of tanks roared forwards, climbing the steep embankment quickly amid the explosions of incoming barrage fire. Engines screamed as the massive Land Raiders reached the apex of the climb and rose over the lip of the embankment before the tanks thumped down on the other side. They rolled towards the enemy hidden behind a wall of smoke and ash that was drawing closer with every falling barrage.

Drak'shal's daemon essence pumped strength through his veins and his muscles strained within his power armour.

To become one of the Anointed had been his dream since his inception into the Legion. He knew that his relationship with Marduk had kept him from being embraced into the cult, for his prowess was faultless. Long had it been a source of dishonour for Burias and he had at times hated the First Acolyte for it. He had no idea what had occurred on the moon of Calite, but the hatred between Marduk and Kol Badar had been palpable ever since.

Curse him and his feud with the Coryphaus! Burias thought. If the warlord would allow him to be embraced into the cult of the Anointed then he would relish the opportunity and grasp it with both hands.

The Coryphaus was right, the future of the First Acolyte was far from certain, and to throw his support behind Marduk without consideration of this would be foolish. No, he would wait for the right moment to make his decision about where his loyalties lay.

Such thoughts left him instantly as he heard the mechanised, insane whisperings of the Land Raider cease for a moment. The vehicle's machine-spirit had been merged with the essence of a daemon upon the factory world of Ghalmek, bound within the casing of the tank by the fabricators and sorcerers of the Legion with the aid of the chirameks.

'Entering the blind cloud, Icon Bearer,' said the drawling twin voices of the Land Raider's operators, warriors who had long ago become one with the machine.

The daemonic, mechanised whisperings of the tank began again, the voices agitated and excited.

'Command? Come in! Damn it!' swore the Valkyrie pilot. He could make no sense of the garbled nonsense being broadcast through the vox system. His sensor arrays had turned to darkness minutes earlier and he was flying completely without their assistance. Now the vox-caster was playing up and he was completely cut off from the rest of the squadron, not to mention base command. Damn it, he couldn't even communicate with the drop-troopers behind him, for even the closed circuit comm-transmissions of the unit were spewing nonsense.

He knew that the other Elysians were trying to make contact, but their voices morphed into hellish, bestial screams and roars. He wondered if that was how his voice sounded to their ears.

The closer they got to the damned insane tower of the enemy, the more garbled and chaotic the sounds became. He switched the system off, reasoning that he would rather hear nothing than that hellish blare. Yet even with the systems disabled, his earpieces blared with the evil sound and he slammed his fist into his helmet in desperation to get the insane noise out of his head.

You are all going to die, the voice said to him.

The Valkyrie was ripped apart as it was struck by anti-aircraft fire and the pilot was certain that he heard laughter in his ears, even as the cockpit exploded into a billowing fireball.

Tank Commander Walyon grinned as he stood in the cupola of his Leman Russ battle tank, the wind and smoke blowing in his face. The lowered visor of his helmet protected his eyes, not that there was anything to see as the tank thundered through the smoke.

He glanced out to either side. He could dimly make out only the closest tanks, but he knew that there were scores of vehicles spread out on each wing. He was at the point of the arrowhead, roaring towards the enemy, and his heart was racing.

He had been waiting for this day for decades. He knew that being a tank commander within the Elysian ranks was regarded as a dubious honour; all good Elysians dreamt of attacking via drop-ship, for that was the rhetoric drilled into the soldiers from day one. But tanks had always been Walyon's true love and he had accepted the post with relish. The tank company within the 133rd was regarded as little more than a joke; few Elysian regiments even had a tank company. The other officers regarded the position as a dead end and he knew they sniggered behind his back - promotion out of harm's way, they said. Waylon did not care, for within the ranks of the tank company he had found his home.

However, what had followed was years of boredom and resentment. Time after time the 133rd were launched into battle, but the armoured divisions were held back.