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And for one to flee with prize in hand,

Gatemaster,

He who bears Lorgar's touch.

PROLOGUE

Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion, looked up. His noble, deathly pale patrician features, common amongst those imbued with the gene-seed of blessed Lorgar, were twisted in frustration and anger. Braziers burning within the darkness of the icy mausoleum lit his face, the flames mirrored in his eyes.

'I have read the portents. I felt the truth within the blood of the sacrifices on my tongue.'

He rounded on his silent listener, the ancient Warmonger.

'But this vision fills my head, and its meaning is unclear. I have recited the Curses of Amentenoc; I have supplicated the Great Changer with offerings and sacrifice. I have spent endless hours in meditation, opening myself up to the wisdom and majesty of the living Ether. But the meaning remains unclear.

'I am assailed by the dead, long dead, and they claw at my armour with skeletal claws. They scratch deep furrows into my blessed ceramite, but they cannot pierce my consecrated flesh. I begin to recite from the Book of Lorgar, the third book of the Litanies of Vengeance and Hate. "Smite down the non-believers and the deceived, and they shall know the truth of the words of oblivion."'

Marduk clenched his fist tightly, servo-muscles in his armour whining as his entire body tensed.

'I shatter their bones with my fists. They cannot stand against me. But they are many.'

'Calm your mind, First Acolyte,' boomed the ancient one. It was the sound of the sepulchre given voice, an impossibly deep baritone that reverberated through the still tomb, deep within the strike cruiser. Each word was spoken slowly and deliberately, amplified through powerful vox-units.

Once he had been a mighty hero who fought at the side of the greatest warriors ever to have lived. As a captain he had led great companies of the Legion against the foes of Lorgar and the Warmaster, and Marduk had studied all of his recorded sermons and exhortations. They were masterpieces of rhetoric and faith, filled with righteous hatred, and his skill at deciphering and predicting the twisting patterns of the future through his ritualised dream visions were astounding. He had fallen fighting against the archenemies, the deniers of the truth, those who followed the False Emperor in their ignorance and blindness.

'You fight your visions too hard. They are gifts from the gods, and as with all gifts bestowed from the great powers, you should receive them with thanks.'

The meagre physical remnants of the inspirational leader had been interred within the sarcophagus that lay before Marduk. Though his body was utterly ruined, he was destined to live on within the tomb of his new shell, and become the Warmonger. While the other Dreadnoughts of the Legion had slowly succumbed to madness and raving insanity, the Warmonger retained much of his lucidity. It was his faith, Erebus himself had stated, that kept him from slipping into darkness.

All the anger and frustration flowed out of Marduk, and he smiled. The face that had looked brooding and twisted with anger a moment before was darkly handsome once again, black eyes glinting.

'Pray for enlightenment, but do not be impatient and expect instant gratification,' continued the Warmonger. 'Knowledge and power will come to you, for you are on the path of the devout, and the favour of the gods is upon you. But you must let yourself succumb to the embrace of the great powers; they will buoy you, and only then will the veil be lifted from your eyes. Only then will you see what your vision means. You need not fear the darkness, for you are the darkness.'

The Warmonger flexed its huge, mechanical arms, hissing steam venting from the joints.

'My weapons ache for the bloodshed to begin anew,' the dreadnought said, massive weapon feeds aligning themselves in anticipation. 'Do we fight alongside our Lord Lorgar this day?'

'Not today,' said Marduk quietly, recognising that the Warmonger's lucidity was slipping. It was often this way.

'And the Warmaster? Do his battles against the False Emperor fare well? Has he yet dethroned the hated betrayer, the craven abandoner of the Crusade?'