Crusade & Other Stories - Dan Abnett Et Al.

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Dorn.

  The man walked out into the circle of the Investiary to face Dorn. He greeted him with the old salute of Unity rather than the sign of the aquila.

  ‘You were staring at the statues of your kin,’ he observed. ‘I asked… would you tear them all down?’

  ‘The statues or my kin, Sigillite?’ Dorn replied.

  ‘Both. Either.’

  ‘The statues, perhaps. I believe Horus is doing a fine job with the men themselves.’

  Malcador smiled and looked up at Dorn. Like Dorn’s, his hair was white.

  Unlike Dorn’s, it was long like a mane. Malcador was an exceptional being.

  He had been with the Emperor from the inception of the Unification Wars, serving as aide, confidant and advisor. He had risen to become the master of the Council of Terra. The Emperor and the primarchs were genetically advantaged post-humans, but Malcador was just a man, and that was what made him exceptional. He stood on a par with the post-human masters of the

  Imperium, and he was just a man.

  ‘Will you walk with me, Rogal Dorn?’

  ‘Are there not matters of state that require your attention, even at this hour, sir? The Council will bemoan your absence from the debating table.’

  ‘The Council can manage for a while without me,’ Malcador replied. ‘I like to take the air at this time of night. The Imperium never rests, but at night, up here in the thin air of the old Himalazia, I find there is at least an illusion of rest, a time to think and free the mind. I walk. I close my eyes. The stars do not go out because I am not looking at them.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Dorn.

  Malcador laughed. ‘No, not yet.’

  They said little at first. They left the Investiary and walked along the beige stones of the Precinct’s highest terraces, between the weeping fountains.

  They walked as far as Lion’s Gate, onto the platforms that overlooked the docking rings and landing fields of the Brahmaputra Plateau. The gate had once been a thing of magnificence, two gilded beasts rising up to lock claws in a feral dispute. Dorn’s order of works had replaced them with giant grey donjons stippled with casemates and macro-gun ports. A curtain wall of bleak rockcrete encircled the gate, its edge fletched with void field vanes like the spines of some prehistoric reptile.

  They stood and considered it for a long time.

  ‘I am not a subtle man,’ Malcador said, at length.

  Dorn raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Malcador, ‘perhaps I am. Guile comes easily to a politician. I know I am considered cunning.’

  ‘An old word, with no more meaning than “wise”,’ Dorn replied.

  ‘Indeed. I will accept that as a compliment. All I meant to say was, I will not attempt to be subtle now.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘The Emperor has expressed His concerns.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Dorn asked.

  Malcador answered with a slight sigh. ‘He understands you are filled with misgivings.’

  ‘Only natural, I would think, given the circumstances,’ said Dorn.

  The Sigillite nodded. ‘He trusts you to undertake the defence. He counts on

  you. Terra must not fall, no matter what Horus brings. This palace must not fall. If it is to end here, then it must end in our triumph. But He knows, and I know, and you know, that any defence is only as strong as its weakest part: faith, belief, trust.’

  ‘What are you telling me?’

  ‘If there is doubt in your heart, then that is our weakness.’

  Dorn looked away. ‘My heart is sad because of what I have been made to do to this place. That’s all it is.’

  ‘Is it? I don’t think so. What are you really afraid of?’

  Malcador raised his hand and the lights in his chambers came on. Dorn looked around. He had never entered the Sigillite’s private apartments before.

  Ancient images hung on the walls: flaking, fragile things of wood, canvas and decomposing pigments, preserved in thin, blue fields of stasis; the smoke-pale portrait of a woman with the most curious smile; garish yellow flowers rendered in thick paint; the unflinching, rheumy gaze of an old fleshy man, cast in shadow, tobacco brown.

  Along another wall hung old tattered banners showing the thunderbolt-and-lightning strike sigil of the Pre-Unity armies. Suits of armour – perfect, glinting thunder armour – were mounted in shimmering suspension zones.

  Malcador offered Dorn wine, which he refused, and a seat, which he accepted.

  ‘I have made a certain peace with myself,’ Dorn said. ‘I understand what I am afraid of.’

  Malcador nodded. He had pulled back his cowl and the light shone on his long white hair. He sipped from his glass. ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘I do not fear anyone. Not Horus, not Fulgrim, none of them. I fear the cause. I fear the root of their enmity.’

  ‘You fear what you don’t understand.’

  ‘Exactly. I am at a loss to know what drives the Warmaster and his cohorts.

  It is an alien thing to me, quite defying translation. A strong defence relies on knowing what you are defending against. I can raise all the bulwarks and curtain walls and cannon-bastions I like, and I still won’t know what it is I’m fighting.’

  ‘Perceptive,’ said Malcador, ‘and true of us all. I fancy even the Emperor doesn’t fully understand what it is that drives Horus against us so furiously.

  Do you know what I think?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Malcador shrugged. ‘I believe it is better that we don’t know. To understand it would be to understand insanity. Horus is quite mad. Chaos is inside him.’

  ‘You say that as if Chaos is a… thing.’

  ‘It is. Does that surprise you? You’ve known the warp and seen its corrupting touch, that’s Chaos. It has touched humanity now, twisted our brightest and best. All we can do is remain true to ourselves and fend it off, deny it. Trying to understand it is a fool’s errand. It would claim us too.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Don’t see, Rogal Dorn, and you will live longer. All you can do is acknowledge your fear. That’s all any of us can do. Recognise it for what it is: your pure, human sanity rocked by the sight of the warp’s infecting, suffocating madness.’

  ‘Is this what the Emperor believes?’ asked Dorn.

  ‘It’s what He knows. It’s what He knows He doesn’t know. Sometimes, my friend, there is salvation in ignorance.’

  Dorn sat still for a while. Malcador watched him, occasionally sipping from his glass.

  ‘Well, I thank you for your time, sir,’ said Dorn eventually. ‘Your candour too. I should–’

  ‘There is one other thing,’ said Malcador, setting his glass down and rising to his feet. ‘Something I want to show you.’

  Malcador crossed the chamber, and took something from a drawer in an old bureau. He walked back to Dorn, and spread that something out on the low table between them.

  Dorn opened his mouth but no sound issued. Fear gripped him.

  ‘You recognise these, of course.’

  Old cards, worn and fraying, discoloured and liver-spotted with time. One by one, Malcador laid them out.

  ‘The Lesser Arcanoi, just gaming trinkets really, but used widely before the coming of Old Night for divination. This deck was made on Nostramo Quintus.’

  ‘ He used them,’ Dorn breathed.

  ‘Yes, he did. He relied on them. He believed in cartomancy. He dealt his fate out, night after haunted night, and watched how the cards fell.’

  ‘Oh, Holy Terra…’

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Malcador asked, looking up. ‘You are quite pale.’

  Dorn nodded. ‘Curze.’

  ‘Yes, Curze. Had you forgotten him, or simply blocked him out? You have

  bickered and sparred with many of your brothers over the years, but only Konrad Curze ever hurt you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He nearly killed you.’

  ‘Ye
s.’

  ‘On Cheraut, long ago,’

  ‘I remember it well enough!’

  Malcador looked up at Dorn. The primarch had risen to his feet. ‘Then sit back down and tell me, because I wasn’t there.’

  Dorn sat. ‘This is so long ago it’s like another life. We had brought the Cheraut system to compliance. It was hard fought. The Emperor’s Children, the Night Lords and my Fists, we effected compliance. But Curze didn’t know when to stop. He never knew when to stop.’

  ‘And you rebuked him?’

  ‘He was an animal. Yes, I rebuked him. Then Fulgrim told me.’

  ‘Told you what?’

  Dorn closed his eyes. ‘The Phoenician told me what Curze had told him: the fits, the seizures that had plagued Curze since his childhood on Nostramo, the visions. Curze said he had seen the galaxy in flames, the Emperor’s legacy overthrown, legionaries turning on legionaries. It was all lies, an insult to our creed!’

  ‘You confronted Curze?’

  ‘And he attacked me. He would have killed me, I think. He is insane. That’s why we drove him out, sick of his bloodletting. That’s why he burned his home world and took his Night Lords off into the darkest parts of the stars.’

  Malcador nodded, and continued to deal the cards. ‘Rogal, he is what you are truly afraid of, because he is fear incarnate. No other primarch uses terror as a weapon like Curze does. You are not afraid of Horus and his sallow heretics. You are afraid of the fear that sides with him, the night terror that advances alongside the traitors.’

  Dorn sat back and breathed out. ‘He has haunted me, I confess. All this time, he has haunted me.’

  ‘Because he was right. His visions were true. He saw this Heresy coming in his visions. That is the truth you fear. You wish you had listened.’

  Dorn looked down at the cards laid out on the table before him. ‘Do you believe in this divination, Sigillite?’

  ‘Let’s see,’ said Malcador, turning the cards over one by one: the Moon, the Martyr and the Monster, the Dark King askew across the Emperor.

  One other card, the Lightning Tower.

  Dorn groaned. ‘A bastion, blown out by lightning. A palace brought to ruin by fire. I’ve seen enough.’

  ‘The card has many meanings,’ said Malcador. ‘Like the Death card, it is not as obvious as it seems. In the hives of Nord Merica, it symbolised a change in fortune, an overturning of fate. To the tribes of Franc and Tali, it signified knowledge or achievement obtained through sacrifice. A flash of inspiration, if you will, one that tumbles the world you know down, but leaves you with a greater gift.’

  ‘The Dark King lies across the Emperor,’ said Dorn, pointing.

  Malcador sniffed. ‘It’s not exactly a science, my friend.’

  They had blown their way through the massive earthwork defences at Haldwani and Xigaze. The sky at the top of the world was on fire. Despite the bombardments of the orbital platforms and the constant sorties of the Stormbirds and the Thunderhawks, the Traitor Legions advanced, up through the Brahmaputra, along the delta of the Karnali. Continental firestoms raged across Gangetic Plain.

  As they entered the rampart outworks of the Palace, the streaming, screaming multitudes and the striding war machines were greeted by monsoons of firepower. Every emplacement along the Dhawalagiri Prospect

  committed its weapons. Las reached out in neon slashes, annihilating everything it touched. Shells fell like sleet. Titans exploded, caught fire, collapsed on their faces and crushed the warriors swarming around their heels. Still they came. Lancing beams struck the armour-reinforced walls like lightning, like lightning smiting a tower.

  The walls fell. They collapsed like slumping glaciers. Gold-cased bodies spilled out, tumbling down in the deluge.

  The Palace began to burn. Primus Gate fell; Lion’s Gate, subjected to attack from the north; Annapurna Gate. At the Ultimate Gate, the Traitors finally

  sliced into the Palace, slaughtering everyone they found inside. Around every broken gate, the corpses of Titans piled up in vast, jumbled heaps where they had fallen over each other in their desire to break in. The heretic host clambered across their carcasses, pouring into the Palace, yelling out the name of their–

  ‘End simulation,’ said Dorn.

  He gazed down at the hololithic table. At his command, the forces of the enemy withdrew, unit by unit, and the Palace rebuilt itself. The smoke cleared.

  ‘Reset parameters to Horus, Perturabo, Angron and Curze.’

  ‘Opposition?’ the table queried.

  ‘Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, White Scars. Resume and replay scenario.’

  The map flickered. Armies advanced. The Palace began to burn again.

  ‘Play it out, simulation after simulation, if you like,’ said the voice behind him. ‘Simulations are just simulations. I know you won’t fail me when the time comes.’

  Dorn turned. ‘I would never knowingly fail you, Father,’ he said.

  ‘Then don’t be afraid. Don’t let fear get in your way.’

  What are you afraid of? What are you really afraid of?

  The Lightning Tower, thought Rogal Dorn. I understand its meaning: achievement obtained through sacrifice. I’m just afraid of what that sacrifice might be.

  HORUS RISING

  by Dan Abnett

  After thousands of years of expansion and conquest, the human

  Imperium is at its height. His dream for humanity accomplished,

  the Emperor hands over the reins of power to his Warmaster,

  Horus, and heads back to Terra…

  Find this title, and many others, on blacklibrary.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Dan Abnett is the author of the Horus Heresy novels The

  Unremembered Empire, Know No Fear and Prospero Burns, the last two of which were both New York Times bestsellers. He has written almost fifty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, the

  Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies, and I am Slaughter, the first book in The Beast Arises series. He scripted Macragge’s Honour, the first Horus Heresy graphic novel, as well as numerous audio dramas and short

  stories set in the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer universes. He

  lives and works in Maidstone, Kent.

  David Annandale is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Ruinstorm and The Damnation of Pythos, and the Primarchs novel Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar. He has also written Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine, the Yarrick series, several stories involving the Grey Knights, including Warden of the Blade, and The Last Wall, The Hunt for Vulkan and Watchers in Death for The Beast Arises. For Space Marine Battles he has written The Death of Antagonis and Overfiend. He is a prolific writer of short fiction set in the Horus Heresy, Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar universes. David lectures at a Canadian

  university, on subjects ranging from English literature to horror films

  and video games.

  Andy Clark has written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Kingsblade and Shroud of Night, as well as the short story ‘Whiteout’, the Age of Sigmar short story ‘Gorechosen’, and the Warhammer Quest Silver

  Tower novella Labyrinth of the Lost. Andy works as a background

  writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer Age of

  Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

  Aaron Dembski-Bowden is the author of the Horus Heresy novels The

  Master of Mankind, Betrayer and The First Heretic, as well as the novella Aurelian and the audio drama Butcher’s Nails, for the same series. He has also written the popular Night Lords series, the Space

  Marine Battles book Helsreach, the novels The Talon of Horus and Black Legion, the Grey Knights novel The Emperor’s Gift and numerous short stories. He lives and works in Northern Ireland.

  Peter Fehervari is the author of the novels Genestealer Cults and Fire Caste, featuring the Astra Militarum and T’au Empire, the novella ‘Fire and Ice’ from the Shas’o anthology, and the T’au-th
emed short stories

  ‘Out Caste’ and ‘A Sanctuary of Wyrms’, the latter of which appeared in

  the anthology Deathwatch: Xenos Hunters. He also wrote the Space Marines short story ‘Nightfall’, which was in the Heroes of the Space Marines anthology, and ‘The Crown of Thorns’. He lives and works in London.

  John French has written several Horus Heresy stories including the novels Praetorian of Dorn and Tallarn: Ironclad, the novellas Tallarn: Executioner and The Crimson Fist, and the audio dramas Templar and Warmaster. He is the author of The Horusian Wars: Resurrection and the audio drama Agent of the Throne: Blood and Lies as well as the Ahriman series, which includes the novels Ahriman: Exile, Ahriman:

  Sorcerer and Ahriman: Unchanged, plus a number of related short stories collected in Ahriman: Exodus. He lives and works in

  Nottingham, UK.

  L J Goulding is the author of the Horus Heresy audio drama The Heart of the Pharos, while for Space Marine Battles he has written the novel Slaughter at Giant’s Coffin and the audio drama Mortarion’s Heart. His other Black Library fiction includes ‘The Great Maw’ and ‘Kaldor

  Draigo: Knight of Titan’, and he has continued to explore the dark

  legacy of Sotha in ‘The Aegidan Oath’ and Scythes of the Emperor:

  Daedalus. He lives and works in the US.

  Robbie MacNiven is a highland-born History graduate from the

  University of Edinburgh. He has written the Warhammer 40,000 novels

  Carcharodons: Red Tithe and Legacy of Russ as well as the short stories

  ‘Redblade’, ‘A Song for the Lost’ and ‘Blood and Iron’ for Black Library. His hobbies include re-enacting, football and obsessing over

  Warhammer 40,000.

  Steve Parker is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels

  Deathwatch, Rynn’s World, Gunheads and Rebel Winter, along with the novella Survivor and a plethora of short stories featuring the Deathwatch kill-team Talon Squad, the Crimson Fists and various Astra Militarum

  regiments. He lives and works in Scotland.

  Josh Reynolds is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Fabius Bile: Primogenitor and Deathstorm, and the novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt. In the Warhammer world, he has written the End Times novels The Return