Backlist
Book 1 – HORUS RISING
Book 2 – FALSE GODS
Book 3 – GALAXY IN FLAMES
Book 4 – THE FLIGHT OF THE EISENSTEIN
Book 5 – FULGRIM
Book 6 – DESCENT OF ANGELS
Book 7 – LEGION
Book 8 – BATTLE FOR THE ABYSS
Book 9 – MECHANICUM
Book 10 – TALES OF HERESY
Book 11 – FALLEN ANGELS
Book 12 – A THOUSAND SONS
Book 13 – NEMESIS
Book 14 – THE FIRST HERETIC
Book 15 – PROSPERO BURNS
Book 16 – AGE OF DARKNESS
Book 17 – THE OUTCAST DEAD
Book 18 – DELIVERANCE LOST
Book 19 – KNOW NO FEAR
Book 20 – THE PRIMARCHS
Book 21 – FEAR TO TREAD
Book 22 – SHADOWS OF TREACHERY
Book 23 – ANGEL EXTERMINATUS
Book 24 – BETRAYER
Book 25 – MARK OF CALTH
Book 26 – VULKAN LIVES
Book 27 – THE UNREMEMBERED EMPIRE
Book 28 – SCARS
Book 29 – VENGEFUL SPIRIT
Book 30 – THE DAMNATION OF PYTHOS
Book 31 – LEGACIES OF BETRAYAL
Book 32 – DEATHFIRE
Book 33 – WAR WITHOUT END
Book 34 – PHAROS
Book 35 – EYE OF TERRA
Book 36 – THE PATH OF HEAVEN
Book 37 – THE SILENT WAR
Book 38 – Angels of caliban
Book 39 – Praetorian of dorn
Book 40 – CORAX
Novellas
PROMETHEAN SUN
AURELIAN
BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM
THE CRIMSON FIST
PRINCE OF CROWS
DEATH AND DEFIANCE
TALLARN: EXECUTIONER
SCORCHED EARTH
BLADES OF THE TRAITOR
THE PURGE
THE HONOURED
THE UNBURDENED
RAVENLORD
Many of these titles are also available as abridged and unabridged audiobooks. Order the full range of Horus Heresy novels and audiobooks from blacklibrary.com
Audio Dramas
THE DARK KING & THE LIGHTNING TOWER
RAVEN’S FLIGHT
GARRO: OATH OF MOMENT
GARRO: LEGION OF ONE
BUTCHER’S NAILS
GREY ANGEL
GARRO: BURDEN OF DUTY
GARRO: SWORD OF TRUTH
THE SIGILLITE
HONOUR TO THE DEAD
CENSURE
WOLF HUNT
HUNTER’S MOON
THIEF OF REVELATIONS
TEMPLAR
ECHOES OF RUIN
MASTER OF THE FIRST & THE LONG NIGHT
THE EAGLE’S TALON & IRON CORPSES
RAPTOR
Download the full range of Horus Heresy audio dramas from blacklibrary.com
Also available
MACRAGGE’S HONOUR
Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
The Horus Heresy
Part One
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Part Two
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Part Three
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Afterword
Acknowledgements
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
The Horus Heresy
It is a time of legend.
The galaxy is in flames. The Emperor’s glorious vision for humanity is in ruins. His favoured son, Horus, has turned from his father’s light and embraced Chaos.
His armies, the mighty and redoubtable Space Marines, are locked in a brutal civil war. Once, these ultimate warriors fought side by side as brothers, protecting the galaxy and bringing mankind back into the Emperor’s light. Now they are divided.
Some remain loyal to the Emperor, whilst others have sided with the Warmaster. Pre-eminent amongst them, the leaders of their thousands-strong Legions are the primarchs. Magnificent, superhuman beings, they are the crowning achievement of the Emperor’s genetic science. Thrust into battle against one another, victory is uncertain for either side.
Worlds are burning. At Isstvan V, Horus dealt a vicious blow and three loyal Legions were all but destroyed. War was begun, a conflict that will engulf all mankind in fire. Treachery and betrayal have usurped honour and nobility. Assassins lurk in every shadow. Armies are gathering. All must choose a side or die.
Horus musters his armada, Terra itself the object of his wrath. Seated upon the Golden Throne, the Emperor waits for his wayward son to return. But his true enemy is Chaos, a primordial force that seeks to enslave mankind to its capricious whims.
The screams of the innocent, the pleas of the righteous resound to the cruel laughter of Dark Gods. Suffering and damnation await all should the Emperor fail and the war be lost.
The age of knowledge and enlightenment has ended.
The Age of Darkness has begun.
~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~
The Knights Errant
Nathaniel Garro, Agentia Primus, former battle-captain of the Death Guard
Tylos Rubio, Former Librarius Codicier of the Ultramarines
Macer Varren, Former captain of the World Eaters
Vardas Ison, Former Librarian
The Legiones Astartes
Erikon Gaius, Captain of the Ultramarines 21st Company
Rakishio, Known as ‘the Shadowed’, legionary of the Emperor’s Children
Hakeem, Legionary of the White Scars
Harouk, Techmarine of the White Scars
Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists
Sigismund, The Templar, First Captain of the Imperial Fists
Yored Massak, Legionary, former Librarius Codicier of the Imperial Fists
Meric Voyen, Apothecary, formerly of the Death Guard
Those who serve the Imperium
Malcador, Sigillite and Regent of Terra
Khorarinn, Shield-captain of the Legio Custodes
Miqell Olen, Lieutenant, 34th Espandor Rangers, Imperial Auxilia
The faithful, and the lost
Taff Arcudi, Deck-captain, Arc Bellus, Collegia Titanica
Katanoh Tallery, Scribe-adepta of the Administratum, second classificate
Volo Kelkinod, Scribe-adept of the Administratum, second classificate
Haln, Covert operative of the Warmaster
Eristede Kell, Fallen Assassin
Euphrati Keeler, The Living Saint
Kyril Sindermann, Former Primary Iterator
Ndole Esto, Driver
Zeun Thuruq, Believer
‘Cerberus’, Lost soul
‘Those who cannot hear the aria are fated to believe the performers are insane.’
–
Lady El Mar Horobin-La,
The Rapture of Suns [date unknown]
‘Torn by shadows, comes the cry. “Bleed more,” scream the masses, “bleed more.” So they do, and they do; but the masses only howl for blood in other shades.’
– attributed to the remembrancer
Ignace Karkasy [early M31]
I will say this about him – when we first met, he was like a rock. Unbreakable and stoic, possessed of obdurate resolve and unwilling to compromise.
He was not a giant among his brothers as his gene-father would have been, but still he carried himself in a patrician manner. Respect seemed to come to him as rain to the ground. He earned it with every step he took, every word he uttered. Every deed he undertook.
I would not have said that to him. He would have thought it hubris, and he never hewed towards such things. It was not in him.
It is strange, is it not? That after so many years have passed, after so many terrible events and moments of import between then and now, I recall this thing so clearly. One would think that our meeting might have sunk beneath the weight of the horrors and glories that were to come, but it never has.
Why?
Call it simplicity. Yes. That will suffice.
When I looked him in the eyes that first time, I perceived clarity. And I must ask you to pause to reflect and consider where my mind was in that instant, and what we had experienced before that point.
What we had seen. What we were running from.
Above all, what we were afraid of.
Then you will understand how exceptional that was. So you see, something as simple as clarity was a prize that I seized upon with all my might.
In our desperation, we who fled had flung ourselves into the Stygian night, had given ourselves fully to faith. Understand that we had no guarantee of survival, and know that with certainty. Death awaited us. We were given only the chance to choose how it would happen, not to forestall it.
But then we happened upon them, upon him. Guided by voices, by braver souls.
His welcome was to show us that all the galaxy had not gone mad. Only some of it. Yes, only some of it.
No, he showed that there were still some things we could grasp that had not changed. Despite what we had experienced, all loyalty was not gone from the universe. Good and right and true, these ideals did not die that day. Thank the Throne. Wounded they were, oh yes. Cut to the quick and bloody, indeed. But still alive. Still fighting.
He showed us that. Affirmed it. And with his actions, he gave us hope.
We had expected death. Felt its inexorable approach. We prayed and asked our God-Emperor to take us to His side when the end came.
But that was not His gift to us. He had other plans.
Instead He placed this guardian in our path, a warrior who himself was on a journey, seeking an understanding of this new reality. A shepherd who would carry us away from the madness and beyond the reach of evil.
For a time, at least.
I knew it when that scarred face looked down upon me and I saw humanity written there. I saw a noble soul looking back at me through his searching, distant gaze.
Let me tell you about him. Close your eyes and listen. Hear his voice through my words. See his deeds in your thoughts.
Let me tell you about Nathaniel Garro.
Part One
THE SWORD
One
Mark of the Sigillite
Calth ablaze
Brothers in arms
All about him, the grey terrain of the Sea of Crises glowed monochrome, draining the colour from everything. Through towering windows of once bright glassaic pitted and misted by centuries of micrometeorite strikes, the stark beauty of Luna’s landscape reflected back a hard, uniform light that seemed to cast no shadows.
The illumination gave nowhere to hide; something in that truth stirred a sense of rightness in Nathaniel Garro. That was how it should be. But in that truth, there was also an edge of sorrow, a longing that he had – so far – been prevented from addressing.
Since his arrival in the Solar System aboard the starship Eisenstein, since the conclusion of his calamitous mission to bring a warning to his Emperor, Terra’s moon had become Garro’s prison in all but name. Hanging there in the black sky, his birthworld seemed fated to be forever in sight, but beyond his reach.
How long had he been here? The days blurred into one another, and without purpose they were torture. He frowned, ignoring a twist of pain from his augmetic leg, and glared out into the dark. The bionic limb was a recent addition to his flesh, and in quieter moments Garro would admit to himself that he still felt ill at ease with the replacement. It was no lie for him to say that he had truly left a part of himself back in the Isstvan System, in both flesh and in spirit.
Garro’s gaze slipped from Terra’s occluded ochre sphere, and he let it be drawn towards the darkness beyond. Somewhere out there in the black and fathomless void, a newborn war was raging, but for Garro and the men who had joined him in his mission, there was only the hush of the Somnus Citadel.
Here in the domain of the Sisters of Silence, under his house arrest by any other name, the absolute absence of sound had no end to it. With each turning of the world in that black sky, he felt as if the silence dissolved a fresh measure of his soul. To a legionary, this enforced inaction was poison.
How long? The question pressed at his thoughts. How long will I remain here? Until the sky is cut by fire and the enemy is at the very gate?
‘Battle-Captain Garro.’ The words came at a low register, barely a whisper, but in the tranquility of the citadel they carried like a crack of thunder.
He turned to the sound of the voice. A hooded figure was silently crossing the chamber, and Garro was certain he had been alone here only a moment before. He knew the voice, however, and that explained it all.
‘Great Malcador.’ Garro bowed slightly towards the Regent of Terra as the new arrival passed over a floor of abstract black-and-white tiles. The iron staff in his hand cast a soft glow from the flames that muttered in the basket atop it, flickering with each footfall; and yet, Garro noted, the Regent did not seem to cast any shadow where he walked. ‘I came at your summons, Lord Sigillite,’ continued the legionary. ‘How may I serve you?’
Malcador gave a thin smile that cut through Garro’s rote greeting. There had never been any question, of course, that his summons would not be obeyed. He gestured at the glassy walls. ‘I recall that the last time we met here, you were angry with me. I saw the colours of your fury like an aurora. Strong and bright.’
Garro’s memory kindled a brief echo of that rage and he stiffened. ‘Can you blame me? I crossed the light years in a stolen warship, faced the guns of my own battle-brothers, and for what? To bring you warning of a treachery you had already foreseen. To face distrust and suspicion. Forgive me if I remain in ill humour.’
The words balanced on the edge of insubordination and the Sigillite’s smile widened. Garro felt the gossamer trace of a psychic touch passing over him. After the Emperor Himself, Malcador was the most powerful human psyker alive, and to be stood before him was to be as glass. Just as the sunlight scoured the lunar surface leaving nothing hidden, so Garro faced the telepathic probe and did not flinch. He had nothing to hide.
Malcador saw the truth of him. Once a company captain of the XIV Legiones Astartes – the unstoppable Death Guard under the primarch Mortarion – Garro had become a man lost. His oaths remained unbroken, while those around him had been shattered. When his master and his kinsmen declared their loyalty to the renegade Warmaster Horus, it was Garro who had dared to refuse. Garro, who made a desperate voyage across space to carry word of this terrible sedition back to the Emperor.
‘You have paid a high price for your fealty, Nathaniel. Your Legion. Your brotherhood. The lives of your men. Yet you still remain.’
‘I am
the Emperor’s hand.’ The answer came without hesitation. Did Malcador think he wished for some kind of reward for doing his duty? Garro wanted nothing so trivial. He sought only to return to what he was best at, what he was made for. ‘I could not turn from that,’ he added.
The Sigillite nodded. ‘But without a purpose, a legionary is nothing. A warrior without a war… is no warrior at all.’
Despite himself, Garro felt his annoyance returning. ‘I have a purpose,’ he insisted. ‘Whatever force drives us, be it human will, fate or some higher power, I know that. There is reason for me to live. Just as there was for me to bring the warning, to stand alone as my kindred took rebellion to their hearts.’ He gestured around, no longer able to stand rigid at attention, advancing towards the Regent. ‘But as long as you keep me corralled here, you deny me the chance to find it!’
The moment the words left his mouth, some part of him wanted to call them back. Few could speak in such a way to the Sigillite and not fear chastisement because of it. But it was done, and he meant everything he had said.
When Malcador met his gaze, Garro felt a chill pass through him, like a shadow cast across his soul. In that moment it came to him why the Sigillite had suddenly demanded his presence here.
‘We shall see what purpose you will serve,’ intoned the great psyker. ‘You are a legionary, indeed, and that will never alter. But you are of the Death Guard no longer. You are a ghost.’ Malcador put hard emphasis on the word, cutting him with it. ‘You are a figure that stands between light and dark, trapped amid the grey…’
Garro found himself nodding. It was true. He had fallen into the cracks of this insurrection, and feared the abyss might swallow him whole.
But Malcador’s next words offered a lifeline. ‘I have need of such a man.’
His head snapped up. ‘Then task me, Sigillite. I ask only for that, and nothing more. Let me fulfil my purpose.’
A slow smile crossed that ancient, thoughtful face. ‘For your sins, Nathaniel Garro, I will give you exactly what you have asked for.’ He beckoned him with his other hand. ‘Come. Follow me.’
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