On the training deck of the warship, Lorgar climbed to the elevated platform and gazed down in silence at the Legion warriors drilling below.
At the center of the training deck stood the dueling arena.
Lorgar spotted Captain Paulus immediately, clad in Mark II Crusade Armour, wielding a power sword with its disintegration field dark, dueling another captain.
Mark II Astartes power armor, known as the Crusade-pattern, had been ubiquitous at the height of the Great Crusade.
Millions of suits rolled out of Mars and other forge sites for the Legion’s campaigns, and for most of the two centuries that the Great Crusade endured, the MK2 was synonymous with the Legions, the Imperium, and the Imperial Truth.
The mortal Auxilia outnumbered the transhuman Space Marine Legions by more than a hundredfold, yet the stern faceplate of the MK2 represented the sum of all fear — or all hope, for the scattered peoples of humanity.
Which one depended entirely on whether they stood against the approaching Expeditionary Fleet or opened their arms to it.
The power swords the warriors carried were one of many patterns of power weapon.
Activation came through the control mechanism on the hilt, and once triggered, the blade was wrapped in a disintegration field of tremendous destructive force.
That field could break matter down at the molecular level.
Flesh, bone, most grades of armor, a power sword cut through them with ease.
It was, by any measure, an exceptionally lethal close-combat weapon.
The power sword had existed since the founding of the Imperium itself.
Its origins almost certainly reached back to the Dark Age of Technology.
By the current era of the Great Crusade, a formidable power sword was exceedingly rare.
It was the kind of weapon that countless warriors spent careers dreaming of owning.
Only a handful within the Mechanicum still held the knowledge needed to manufacture them, and many of the existing blades were hundreds, or thousands, of years old.
A power sword had thus become a symbol of elite status.
Many officers carried one less as a weapon than as a statement of their own prestige.
Crafting a power weapon demanded vast time and rare materials.
Within the Imperium, they were issued only to the most senior Astartes and to those who held real power, no one else.
Paulus moved through the arena like an elegant swordsman, the Proteus-pattern power sword turning in practiced hands.
A Space Marine who had fought for a century, Captain Paulus could draw on every weapon in the Legion’s armory, from the smallest combat knife to the great melta guns that demanded charging cells.
Paulus was among the earliest recruits of the Word Bearers Legion.
A true Terran-born in every sense of the word.
One of the very first warriors to ever fight beneath the Word Bearers’ banner.
Paulus came from the Eurasian regions of ancient Terra, and had already been a formidable swordsman long before joining the Word Bearers.
The razor edge flashed through the arena.
It moved fast enough that the other Space Marines watching couldn’t follow it at all.
Under Lorgar’s exceptional vision, though, it unfolded frame by frame, like watching a film play out in slow motion.
To Lorgar, even the most elite warriors in the Legion couldn’t match his own speed.
“Captain Paulus — victory!” In the single instant Lorgar’s attention had drifted, the referee’s voice rang out across the arena.
Lorgar looked back.
The blade of the warrior standing opposite Paulus had been sheared off by sheer overwhelming force.
The keen edge of Paulus’s sword now rested at that warrior’s throat.
“Hey, Brother Lancelot.” Paulus sheathed the power sword.
“You should watch the wear on your blade.
Trust me — you don’t want it snapping on you in the middle of cutting down greenskins.” “Thanks for the warning, Brother Paulus.” Lancelot put away the weapon.
“That duel alone is going to keep me thinking for a while.” The broken power sword was collected by a nearby servitor.
The Word Bearers Legion wasn’t short on weapons.
File a report with the quartermaster, requisition a replacement, straightforward enough.
“My lord.” Every Space Marine on the training floor snapped to a salute the moment they saw Lorgar arrive.
“Carry on.” Lorgar waved a hand.
“I’m just looking around.” “Brother Lorgar.” Magnus’s tall figure appeared at Lorgar’s side without warning.
“Brother Magnus?” Lorgar turned.
“Brother Lorgar, my Legion and I depart soon.” A faint smile crossed Magnus’s scarlet features.
“I hope to see you again in the battles ahead.” “You will, Magnus.” Lorgar gave a polite nod.
They exchanged a few brief words.
Then Lorgar walked Magnus back to the shuttle and, once that was done, relayed the Legion’s updated order of battle to every Word Bearers warrior through several of the Chapter Masters.
The Chapter System stayed intact.
But the five primary Chapters were reorganized into thirteen.
One Chapter would fall under Lorgar’s direct command, structured along the lines of a Primarch’s Honour Guard and the Vigilator Cadre, drawn from Legion warriors of exceptional martial skill and noble character.
The remaining twelve drew their organizational structure from the Dark Angels’ wings, each divided into specialist formations: armored assault, large-scale frontal engagements, infiltration, pacification, and other areas of expertise.
At the same time, the position of Chaplain was formally established.
These Chaplains, however, were considerably more powerful and more loyal than ordinary Space Marine Chaplains found elsewhere in the Legions.
Within the Word Bearers, the Chaplain’s role was positioned much like a Commissar, warriors armed ideologically through the invincible creed of the Imperial Truth and the Primarch’s Doctrine, ensuring their absolute loyalty.
The Chaplains also had to be gifted orators, capable of rousing morale when it mattered most.
Even if a unit were scattered and broken, a Chaplain could rally a new force in short order and use that same power of address to draw more mortal soldiers into the ranks.
As for the Primarch’s Doctrine itself, Lorgar summarized it in a single line: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Let it be felt rather than explained.
Let those men puzzle it out for themselves.
Lorgar also formally began composing the Book of Lorgar.
Unlike texts bloated with religious nonsense, this volume focused on something more grounded: the behavioral identity of the Space Marines themselves.
They were noble warriors of the Word Bearers Legion.
They possessed superhuman constitution and strength, and so they were to carry themselves with equal nobility of character.
Being chosen for the Legion meant more than fighting for humanity.
It meant fighting for every form of justice.
They had been given powerful bodies.
They were to inherit a mandate equally great.
Bear the Emperor’s Word.
Strike down every enemy of Mankind.
In the name of the Primarch, in the name of every noble virtue, the great Crusade of the Word Bearers Legion had formally begun.
➤ Next: The Ultramarines’ Call for Aid