‘I am honoured, Sigismund.’
Both of them raised their blades...
And then there was Commorragh. That endless night we laid siege to the Dark City in our intention to wipe one of their noble houses from the face of the galaxy, in punishment for them for taking Nefertari from me. Abaddon made no move to chain my grief and keep me under control. He encouraged my rage. He admired it. He ordered the Black Legion into the webway in support of my fevered wrath. That is loyalty, my friends. That is brotherhood.
But all of this is yet to come.
‘Khayon,’ one of my captors speaks my name, and I smile at the sound of it from a human throat. She is the one that always lingers longest when the others are gone, and asks the most pressing questions. She brings the queries that matter to me, rather than seeking yet another dry recounting of gods and faith and weakness and war.
‘Greetings, Inquisitor Siroca.’
‘Are you well, heretic?’
‘Well enough, inquisitor. You come with a question?
‘Just one. In your account so far, you remain silent on one vital aspect – you’ve not told us why you surrendered yourself into our custody. Why would a lord of the Ezekarion do that? Why did you come to Terra alone, Khayon?’
‘The answer to that is simple. I came because I am an emissary. I bring a message from my brother Abaddon, to be carried to the Emperor, before the Master of Mankind finally dies.’
I hear her breath catch in her throat. Instinct forces her reply before she can even consider what she’s saying.
‘The God-Emperor cannot die.’
‘Everything dies, Siroca. Even ideas. Even gods, and especially false gods. The Emperor is the memory of a man enthroned on a broken engine of false hope. The Golden Throne is failing. No one knows that better than those of us who dwell in the Eye. We can see the Astronomican dying. We can hear the Emperor’s song fading away. I did not come to Terra to surrender myself into your hands in order to laugh at the dying of His light, but neither will I coat the truth in honeyed lies to make it easier for you to hear.
‘These are not reports on a screen to me, inquisitor, or reams of casualty figures to be easily discarded. The Emperor’s Light is fading across the galaxy. How many fleets of vessels have been lost these last decades, to flickers in the Astronomican? Thousands? Tens of thousands? How many worlds have cried out in rebellion in the last ten years alone, or screamed in psychic distress? How many have fallen silent in the shroud of the warp, now home to nothing but the tread of daemons? Here, on Terra... Can you hear any of Segmentum Pacificus’s thousands of worlds? A quarter of the galaxy has fallen silent. Do you know why? Do you know what wars they are fighting, while cloaked in silence and shadow?’
She is silent for a time.
‘What is the message you brought for the Emperor?’
‘It is simple enough. Ezekyle asked me to journey here and stand before our grandsire, just as we did when the Imperium was young. I will meet the dying Emperor’s empty eye sockets and tell him that the war is almost over. At last, after ten thousand years of banishment in the underworld, his fallen angels are coming home.’
‘Does the Warmaster not need you in his war, on the front lines?’
‘I am exactly where he needs me most, inquisitor.’
I feel her watching me in the wake of those enigmatic words. She judges me for them, judges their possible meanings. And at last, she nods.
‘And will you keep telling your tale?’
‘Yes, inquisitor.’
‘But why? Why do you give your enemies everything they ask for?’
Ah, such a question. Did I not tell you, Thoth? Did I not tell you that she was the one to ask the questions that mattered?
‘These are the End Times, Siroca. None of you are destined to survive the coming of the Crimson Path. The Imperium has been losing the Long War since it was first declared, and now we enter the endgame. I will tell you everything, inquisitor, because, for you, it will change nothing.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my wife Katie, who went down to part-time on a job she loved in order to take care of our son (and me), giving me enough time to write. Anyone who is crazy enough to like my work owes her for the fact I still have a career.
Thanks as always to my test readers/first victims Nikki, Rachel, Greg, Marijan and Ead – the Ezekarion of the real world. Although slightly less evil.
Thanks to Alan Bligh, Laurie Goulding, Graham McNeill and Alan Merrett for the wisdom, advice, and patience with all my emails that began with ‘But what about...’ I swear, my mountain of research material for this novel would choke the Ruinous Powers themselves.
Thanks to Rik Cooper and Nick Kyme, not just for editorial duty and a mile of slack, but for letting me write this one in the first place.
May the Dark Gods bless Raymond Swanland for the awesome cover, and my guild leader Laura for That Plot Point, and Amy Baker for last-minute italics-based editorial salvation.
Thanks to the band Puscifer for the song ‘The Humbling River’, which first inspired the characters of Khayon and Nefertari.
As ever, I’m eternally grateful to WarSeer, Bolter & Chainsword, Heresy-Online, /tg/, DakkaDakka, the readers across Facebook and Twitter, and everyone who shows up to events and signings for the continued support and encouragement.
Most of all, thanks to John French and Gav Thorpe. The Talon of Horus (and the Black Legion series that’ll follow) wouldn’t exist without their insight, motivation, and the insanely long emails back and forth about the juiciest, rarest Warhammer 40,000 lore. Thanks to both of you for reminding me ‘more mythic, more legendary’.
A portion of this book’s proceeds will go to Cancer Research UK, and the SOS Children’s Villages charity to help orphans in Bangladesh.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote the Horus Heresy novels Betrayer and The First Heretic, as well as the novella Aurelian and the audio drama Butcher’s Nails, for the same series. He is also responsible for the popular Night Lords series, the Space Marine Battles book Armageddon (which contains the novel Helsreach and novella Blood and Fire), the Grey Knights novel The Emperor’s Gift and numerous short stories. He lives and works in Northern Ireland
More tales of Chaos and treachery from Aaron Dembski-Bowden.
The full trilogy in one eBook.
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