Gorgons squads retaliating against their Plague Marine custodians, of older, veteran Blood Gorgons squads rebelling from the slave galleys, lashing out against their captors with chains and tools. The fighting was quickly suppressed by gunfire.
The last report, issued from the diseased and venerable Sergeant Kulpus, was that the sentry force at the mid‐decks had been lost and the Blood Gorgons had reclaimed an unsealed weapons vault. The regular patrols had been forced back by heavy Blood Gorgons fire. They were losing ground to the abrupt nature of the uprising.
Opsarus was not pleased. He had almost been driven into a spontaneous and uncharacteristic outburst of rage. Instead, he calmed himself with jags of breathing. His brass respirator tanks throbbed with exhalation from his chest vents.
‘Can you account for this? Is this your doing?’ he asked Muhr accusingly. The sorcerer, as always, stood by his side and behind him.
‘No, my lord,’ Muhr answered, startled. ‘Never.’
‘How did it come to this? This mess. I hate mess. Nurgle is decay, but there is an order to that. A process.A graduation. It is slow and inevitable but never a mess. This,’ Opsarus said, gesturing at the stilted surveillance images on the console banks. ‘This is a mess.’
‘Shall I summon the bearers?’ Muhr asked. He had already drawn his bolt pistol from his holster and was checking the clip.
‘No,’ Opsarus replied, waving him away. ‘I’ll do it myself.’
With careful deliberation, he unlocked his gauntlet. The hand within the shell was black and swollen. From the unintrusive shadows, a servitor of melting flesh and rusting metal scuffled forwards and affixed an autocannon over Opsarus’s hand like a weaponised glove.
Another servitor coupled the dense ammunition belt to the Terminator suit.
‘We go then. To fix this mess that you’ve created,’ Opsarus said. ‘As a matter of principle, Muhr, you should do this yourself. But Nurgle is generous.’
With that, the Crow and his witch made for the command deck, weapon servitors clattering in tow.
THE WAR HAD begun. The five hundred and fifty Plague Marines and four companies of Septic were recalled to battle formations. They rushed back through the space hulk’s labyrinth, collecting in massed, company‐strength formations. In congregation, they were a formidable force. Solid phalanxes of fortified armour and massed firepower – the slow, grinding combat doctrine of Nurgle. Boltguns and shoulder‐mounted autocannons were brought to the fore.
They beat their pitted gauntlets against their chest plates. They shouted in unison, a mocking bark that was carried by a thousand voices. They thundered their feet against the metal decking, raising a clamour that sounded like the march of legions.
Opsarus the Crow, towering tall in his Terminator plate and shroud of skin‐mail, advanced amongst his warriors. They cheered him as he passed. The sorcerer Muhr followed in his wake, his blackened face bearing his allegiance to Nurgle. They cheered him too, for he was now one of them.
170
Opsarus gave no orders, except to raise his fist. The companies of Nurgle, in reply, held aloft their standards and totems, clinking with skulls, effigy dolls and the fluttering flags of skinned tattoos. Beyond the grotesque savagery of their formations, there was also a tightly ranked discipline. With a final clash of kettle drums, the Plague Marines went forth to crush the Blood Gorgons rebellion.
THE DECKS QUAKED. From the lighted halls to the dimmest marshes of the basement sewers, the ship trembled. The Cauldron Born’s fusion reactor scaled from standby to its highest output potential. Monstrous turbines spun with cyclonic force as the reactor core expanded with solar heat.
Gammadin’s reclamation of the ship’s defence grid could be felt everywhere.
Sentry guns, previously limp and toothless, resumed their methodical scanning.
Positioned in high ceilings and bottleneck corridors, the twin‐linked bolters and scatter lasers fired on anything that was not slave‐marked or of the Blood Gorgons gene‐code.
Septic officers broadcast frantic reports that the walls themselves were attacking, spreading confusion throughout their ranks.
Gun servitors – chem‐nourished reptiles of hulking shoulders, piston limbs and arms of reaper cannon – resumed their patrol of the ship’s main decks. Eyeless and drooling, the previously placated beasts relied purely on the ship’s defence grid to sight their targets and receive patrol orders. Now, packs of gun‐servitors engaged Septic heavy infantry at close range. Their sole task was to seek, engage and eliminate.
Throughout the ship’s labyrinthine passages, void shields and lock shutters locked into position. The Nurgle forces, already disorientated by the ship’s layout, were confronted by road‐blocks and impasse at nearly all the major routes.
By itself the Cauldron Born could not win the