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Varnus hissed, motioning for his team to lower their weapons. 'Take him, no guns,' he mouthed to Landers. The enforcer nodded, the confrontation of minutes earlier forgotten, and moved swiftly towards the figure. Feeling the presence behind him too late, the man turned just as Landers's thick arms wrapped around his neck, locking him firmly. He was dragged back across the room, and slammed face first onto the floor, his arms held painfully behind his back. The man struggled in vain, and Landers dropped his knee into the man's back, pinning him in place.

Varnus ran across the room and picked up one of the sodden papers that covered the promethium doused table. It was a detailed schematic map. He swore as he saw what it detailed.

'Get these damn flames out now! This whole place could go up at any second!' Varnus hollered. He opened up his comm-channel. 'Captain, this is Lieutenant Varnus. You need to get in here. Now,' he said, moving back towards Landers and the captive.

He knelt down beside the pinned captive and turned his face roughly towards him. The man's features were twisted in hatred and pain.

'What in the Emperor's name were you planning here?' Varnus said quietly.

The captive spat, eyes blazing with fury.

'What do you make of these, lieutenant? Gang markings? I don't recognise them,' said one of the enforcers.

Varnus looked to where the man motioned with his head. A crude tattoo was visible where the captive's dark brown overalls had been torn at his left shoulder. Ripping the heavy cloth fully away from the man's body, he gazed upon the emblazoned design: a screaming, horned daemon head surrounded by flames.

'I don't recognise it either, but it looks like some kind of damn cult marking to me,' said Varnus. He swore silently to himself.

CHAPTER TWO

Burias walked with a warrior's grace as he stalked through the dark, musty smelling halls of the Infidus Diabolus, impatient for the slaughter that was soon to come. His armour was a deep, bruised red, edged in dull, brushed metal. It was an exhibit of exceptional craftsmanship, each heavy ceramite plate fitting perfectly over his powerful, enhanced body.

He could not recall a time when his sacred armour had not been a part of him. He had laboured over every coiling engraving covering the auto-reductive armour plates, had painstakingly whittled the words of blessed Lorgar along the burnished reinforcement bands that circled his forearms, and had carved the words of the gods themselves around the rim of his heavy shoulder plates. The sacred Latros Sacrum, the symbol that represented the Word Bearers Legion was embossed on his left shoulder. A bronze, stylized representation of a roaring, horned daemon surrounded by flames, it represented all that the Legion and Burias stood for, all that they believed in and all that they killed for.

He wore no helmet for the upcoming exhortation. His vicious, deathly pale face was unmarked by scars, a rarity for a warrior who had fought in as many campaigns as he had, and it was framed by long, oiled black hair.

With each step, the heavy butt of the icon that Burias held in his left hand slammed into the polished, black-veined, stone floor, the sharp sound echoing around him.

The icon was a thick staff of spiked, black iron. It was almost three metres tall, taller even than him, and loops of heavily ornate bronze encircled its shaft. These loops were inscribed with litanies and epistles, sacred words of the Daemon Primarch Lorgar. It was topped with a glistening, black, eight-pointed star, the points of the symbol of Chaos barbed and sharp. In the centre of the star was a graven image of the sacred Latros Sacrum.

Burias had received the honour of becoming icon-bearer with great pride, and he had the privilege of walking before Marduk, the First Acolyte, and Jarulek, the Dark Apostle, leading them to their positions in the ceremonies of worship and sacrifice. He had performed this sacred duty for many years, and the esteem he had earned from his warrior-brothers as a result was great.

He paused before he began his ascent up a grand set of curving stairs. The staircase was wide enough for twenty Space Marines to walk side by side, and its curving balustrades were highly ornate and picked out in bronze, crafted by some unknown hand countless aeons past. Two intimidating statues glared at any wishing to climb the steps, monstrous, coiling daemons said to strike down those with unworthy hearts.

Raising his head high, Burias began the long climb, his footfalls on the cold stone echoing up into the gloom of the arching ceiling hundreds of metres above. Ghostly chanting flowed down upon him, the sound of dozens of servitor eunuchs, forever ensconced in hidden pulpit-casings, intoning the canticles of blessed Lorgar in never-ending cycles.