by Gav Thorpe
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
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
Corax
Soulforge
Dramatis Personae
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Epilogue
The Shadowmasters
Ravenlord
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Epilogue
The Value of Fear
Raptor
Weregeld
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Deliverance Lost’
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.
Missiles streaked across the dusk sky towards the Raven Guard and their allies, and Corax traced their trails to a battery of a dozen Whirlwinds on the opposite side of the valley. The cleft between the mountains was full of light – the glow of slowly descending illuminator shells and the blaze of lamps from vehicles and power armour.
The yellow glare shone on the war-plate and battle tanks of the World Eaters. Some squads and individuals still wore the blue and white of their old Legion colours, though many were clad in red, either paint or blood, their Imperial insignia defaced or obliterated completely.
Cerebral implants drove them into a battle-madness, their brains awash with a cocktail of stimulants and artificial rage impulses. The berserk warriors of the World Eaters pounded towards the squads waiting for them on the mountainside while their tanks and guns belched shells, rockets and plasma to pave the way for the assault. Through the rumble of engines and the thunder of explosions, the primarch of the Raven Guard could hear their hate-filled bellows and snarled battle-cries.
Explosions rocked the slopes, the Whirlwinds hammering legionaries and ferrocrete aegis-walls in fountains of fire. Corax turned his gaze to the left, along the massive viaduct that crossed from one peak to the next along the flank of his position. Above the kilometres-long bridge Thunderhawks and Stormbirds ascended towards the higher slopes, watched over by sweeping patrols of Lightning fighters. Below streamed columns of another foe, thousands of Space Marines advanced beneath banners depicting the hydra of the Alpha Legion. As he knew only too well, for years they had played shadow games, trying to win by manipulation and subversion, bu
t now they came in numbers to deliver the last blow alongside their uneasy allies.
Out to the west, ten kilometres distant, the foothills were awash with a force even greater in number, comprised of traitorous regiments of the Imperial Army. A sea of soldiers from a score of worlds. Had they bargained their lives to Horus out of loyalty? Had the whispers of the Alpha Legion and sermons of the Word Bearers turned small grudges and local aspirations into abhorrence of the Emperor, and even grander ambitions? Or did a darker force push them to service – the fist of Horus clenched above their home worlds, threatening destruction to the disloyal?
The same could be asked of the pilots of the Knight walkers and Titan crews whose massive war engines moved in support of the traitor regiments. Threats and promises were as much a part of the rebels’ armoury as bolters and super-heavy tanks.
No such question surrounded the presence of the last component of the forces assembled for the final attack. Phalanxes of red-armoured legionaries marched in precise step along the flank of the World Eaters, keeping pace with immense tracked engines of destruction and outlandish war machines that hovered several metres above the undulating ground – floating constructs and towers that pulsed and flickered with unnatural energies.
The Thousand Sons of Magnus. Scions of dead Prospero.
Corax looked down at his companion, a Space Marine in storm-grey armour heavily scarred by the mark of bolt, shrapnel and las-beam. Though the enamel of his plate was much chipped and cracked, his Legion symbol was still visible.
A red wolfshead.
‘The Wolves of Fenris have made a lot of enemies,’ Corax murmured.
Bjorn did not look up at the primarch, but flexed his powered claws. ‘Nothing occurred that they did not earn.’
He turned away and started up the hill towards the fortifications. Corax turned his back on the enemy and followed while more shells and missiles raked across the rocks and emplacements of the mountain slope.
His long strides took him towards the keep raised by the Space Wolves, their last line of defence. Like a massive barbican, two towering orbital landers formed an arch, their lifted gull-wings creating a gateway forty metres across. Macrocannon turrets pounded out a steady rhythm, the rounds from each four-gun salvo descended like meteors into the valley to lay a bloody firestorm upon the advancing World Eaters and Thousand Sons. Around them anti-aircraft weapons chattered and hissed shells and las into the sky, blanketing the heavens with a storm to deter even the most foolhardy aerial assault. The air crackled with the ships’ overlapping void shields and Corax’s armour sparked as he crossed the line of the energy barrier.
He ignored the chill as his steps took him into the shadow of the great dropships. Ahead, a cavernous space opened up before him, but the regular cut of the walls betrayed an artificial birth to the hangar-like space within the mountain peak. As well as dozer-marked rock, the stone bore the glassy sheen of phase-field excavation.
A hundred battle tanks and transports nestled within the cavern. Around them the Space Wolves gathered about their pack-leaders and commanders. They checked their weapons and made final oaths to each other, swearing their lives away against the treachery of Horus.
There was not a vehicle nor warrior among them unmarked by battle. In turrets and cupolas those that could no longer walk had taken up roles as gunners, and others similarly crippled occupied the driving positions of the Predators, Land Raiders, Rhinos, Mastodons, Vindicators and other vehicles that remained of the VI Legion’s armoured strength. Bike and jetbike squadrons prowled the periphery like animals waiting to be unleashed from their cages. Slab-sided behemoths strode amongst the sons of Fenris – Dreadnoughts interred with the near-destroyed bodies of Legion heroes.
Bjorn led the primarch up metal steps and into a long tunnel that inclined sharply, turning through several switchbacks until it reached a chamber more than a hundred metres above the main hall.
Silence greeted them. Eighteen Space Wolves, the jarls of the Legion and the survivors of Russ’s own Wolf Guard, crowded the room. They parted at the approach of Corax while Bjorn took up the vigil alongside his brothers. They surrounded a bier fashioned from the top plates of a Land Raider, propped up at shallow angle on spare pauldrons.
Upon the bier lay Leman Russ.
The primarch’s armour was broken in many places, thick with his congealed blood. His face was a mask of pain, lips drawn back to reveal broken teeth, one eye swollen closed by bruised flesh and shattered orbital bone.
A hiss escaped the injured primarch’s gritted teeth. His eyes flickered open but his gaze danced around the room without lucid sight. Corax lowered to a knee so that he might hear better.
‘Death... At your call... I shall return...’ whispered Russ. He sat up suddenly and grasped the gorget of Corax’s armour. There was madness in the Wolf King’s eyes. ‘The Wolftime! I hear... the snarl of the beast...’
He lapsed into wordless snarls and grunts. Corax pried his brother’s fingers from his armour and let him slump back onto the bier. Laying a hand upon Russ’s chest he could feel the twin beats of the primarch’s hearts, as strong and fierce as ever. His body was broken, but it was his mind, his soul, that had suffered the greatest wounds.
An odd sound drew his attention back to Russ’s face. The primarch sobbed, eyes closed, breath coming in short gasps.
‘I failed,’ croaked the Lord of Fenris. ‘Darkness... Hel awaits...’
Corax cradled Russ’s head against his chest, unsure and unnerved by the sight of one of his strongest brothers cast so low. Seeing the Raven Guard primarch’s fell expression, the assembled Wolf Lords threw back their heads and howled, and the noise of their laments echoed through the corridors and halls of their last outpost.
Corax spoke quietly, the question asked of himself.
‘How did we come to this?’
Soulforge
~ Dramatis Personae ~
The XIX Legion ‘Raven Guard’
Corvus Corax, Primarch
Agapito, Commander of the Talons
Soukhounou, Commander of the Hawks
Branne, Commander of the Raptors
Navar Hef, Raptor sergeant
Stradon Binalt, Techmarine
The XVII Legion ‘Word Bearers’
Azor Nathrakin, Librarian-sorcerer
Sagitha Alons Neortallin, Indentured Navigator
The Mechanicum of Constanix II
Delvere, Archmagos, Master of Iapetus
Vangellin, Cognoscenti Magokritarch of Atlas
Loriark, Cybernetica, Magos Senioris of Third District
Bassili, Biologis, Primus Cogenitor, Third District
Firax, Magos Biologis, Third District
Salva Kanar, Magos Logistica, Third District
Lacrymenthis, Cogitatoris Regular, Third District
One
He had not felt this way for a long time. Not in the decades since he had fought alongside the primarch to rid his home of its technocratic enslavers had Agapito been possessed of such vigour. It burned through him, giving him strength beyond his transhuman physique, every swing of his power sword energised by the purity of his cause.
Righteousness.
It was a hatred that boiled inside the Raven Guard commander, sending him without hesitation into the slaves of the accursed Word Bearers. Following Corax on the Emperor’s Great Crusade had given Agapito purpose and determination, but the near-rage that propelled him into battle now was of an order far above duty and dedication.
It was fate that had delivered the hated foe into the hands of the Raven Guard. A chance encounter on the edge of the Cassik system – the Word Bearers caught with warp engine trouble and unable to flee. Agapito would not let the opportunity pass lightly.
This was providence, though from what higher power Agapito did not know, nor care. The slayers of his brothers would
in turn be slain. The betrayal of Isstvan would be avenged, one traitor at a time if necessary. The memories of thousands of Raven Guard culled like vermin by the guns of the Word Bearers were like daggers in the commander’s chest, their piercing a goad to drive him onwards.
He spied a traitor legionary amongst the crew that had spilled forth along the corridors to defend their strike cruiser against the boarding of the Raven Guard. The sight of the Word Bearer brought back a flood of recollection: cannons and las-fire scything across the Urgall Depression, leaving scores of dead sons of Deliverance with each salvo; the vox-net swamped by the cries of the dying and the shock of treachery; warriors he had fought alongside for many years ripped from the world of the living by cold-blooded murderers.
The half-human servitors and misshapen henchmen of the traitor legionary were no obstacle, easily thrown aside by Agapito’s charge. In the confines of the strike cruiser the Raven Guard could not be matched. Agapito wreaked bloody ruin with sword and fist, slashing and punching his way into the press of mutated foes without a moment’s regard for the blades and mauls clattering from his armour.
Towering over the mass of freakish slaves, Agapito could see the Word Bearer as the traitor exhorted his minions to hurl themselves against the Raven Guard warriors. Dozens of slaves fell, their bodies rent with gruesome wounds, as Agapito and his legionaries thrust along the passage.
Breaking free from the throng, the commander paused, eyes fixed on his target as the red-armoured legionary waited a few metres away. The Word Bearer raised his chainsword to the grille of his helm, a mocking salute and a challenge to mortal combat.
Agapito was not here to duel, to exchange strike and parry in an effort to determine the worthy. He was here to avenge, to punish, to kill.
A blast from his plasma pistol seared through the armoured breast of the Word Bearer as he lowered his blade, turning ceramite and flesh to greasy slag. The Word Bearer toppled face-first to the deck as Agapito dashed onwards, carving into the sub-human creatures that served the Legion of Lorgar.
A few more seconds, a flurry of blows and shots, and Agapito was left standing over a mound of dead foes. A squad of his Talons – all survivors of Isstvan too – gathered around their leader.
‘Quadrant clear, commander,’ reported Sergeant Ashel. The legionary’s armour was coated with blood, the black paint glistening with fresh gore. He looked down at the remains of the enemy. The corpses were of men and women twisted and mutated, with eyes and skin like snakes, and sharp teeth filling wide mouths. ‘Vile filth.’
