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
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
The First
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Twain
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Triumvirate
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Go Forth
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Pentae
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Hex’d
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Legacy of Caliban’
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 ~
Caliban’s Saviours
LUTHER, Grand Master of the Order
LORD CYPHER, Guardian of the Order’s traditions
MERIR ASTELAN, Master of the First Chapter
GALEDAN, Chapter Master, Marshal of the Watch
ZAHARIEL, Librarian, Master of the Mystai
VASSAGO
ASRADAEL
TANDERION
CARTHEUS
ATHADRAEL
VAEL, Lieutenant-commander
VASTOBAL, Captain
ADARTHIAN, Training master
BETHALIN TYLAIN, Marchesa-colonel, Imperial Army auxilia
SAULUS MAEGON, Mistress of the Angelicasta
BELATH, Chapter Master
ASMODEUS, Librarian
GRIFFAYN, ‘The Spear-Cast’, sergeant-at-arms
TAGRAIN, Deck-captain, transport division
HASTER, Deck-lieutenant
TUKON, Chapter Master, now captive beneath Aldurukh
MELIAN, Captain, now captive beneath Aldurukh
Distant Macragge, and Imperium Secundus
SANGUINIUS, The Imperator Regis, beloved primarch of the Blood Angels
ROBOUTE GUILLIMAN, Lord Warden, noble primarch of the Ultramarines
LION EL’JONSON, Lord Protector, vengeful primarch , of the Dark Angels
VALENTUS DOLOR, Tetrarch of Ultramar (Occluda)
TITUS PRAYTO, Master of the Presiding Centuria, XIII Legion Librarius
MYRDUN, Librarian of the First Legion
DRAKUS GOROD, Fief commander of the Invictus bodyguard
AZKAELLON, Commander of the Sanguinary Guard
FAFFNR BLUDBRODER, Watch-pack master of the Space Wolves
VODUN BADORUM, Captain of the Praecental Guard, household division
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TARASHA EUTEN, Chamberlain Principal to Lord Guilliman
STENIUS, Legionary captain, and master of the Invincible Reason
THERALYN FIANA, Chief Navigator of the Invincible Reason, House Ne’iocene
HOLGUIN, ‘Deathbringer’, voted lieutenant of the Deathwing
MORPHAEL
ATHORIS
CAROLINGUS
NEMERES
FARITH REDLOSS, ‘Dreadbringer’, voted lieutenant of the Dreadwing
DANAES, Voted successor, Dreadwing
HALSWAIN
XAVIS, Paladin of the 20th Order
BARZAREON, Paladin of the 31st Order
NERAELLIN, Lieutenant, commander of the Colgrevance
HEXAGIA, Aide-de-militant to Neraellin
SACATUS DEMOR, Sergeant of the Ultramarines
THORAN, Sergeant of the Dark Angels
CASOBOURN
ASAMUND
FARETAEL
DOLMUN
DAEVIOS, Master of Ordnance, XIII Legion
HASTENRAL, Munitions provost
PARESTOR, Whirlwind artillery commander
METRITAL
SARDEON
KONRAD CURZE, The Night Haunter, renegade primarch of the Night Lords
Champions of the Great Crusade
HORUS LUPERCAL, Primarch of the Luna Wolves
EZEKYLE ABADDON, First Captain, Mournival
TARIK TORGADDON, Mournival
LITUS, Mournival
JANIPUR, Mournival
GARVIEL LOKEN, Shield-lieutenant
CALAS TYPHON, First Captain of the Death Guard, master of the Grave Wardens
HADRABULUS VIOSS, Captain of the Grave Wardens
HURKLAN, Sergeant
ISRAFAEL, Chief Librarian of the Dark Angels
EREBUS, First Chaplain of the Word Bearers
DEBLESSENT, Lieutenant, Ayliet Phalanx auxilia, Imperial Army
REGULUS, Envoy of the Martian Mechanicum
‘If a group of people feels that it has been humiliated and that its honour has been trampled underfoot, it will want to express its identity, and this expression of an identity will take different shapes and forms.’
– Abdul-qarim Sereni, Remembrances of the Peaceful Compliance of Caliban
‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.’
– attrib. the Emperor, to the Six Hosts at embarkation upon the Expeditionary Fields
PROLOGUE
Zaramund, 970.M30
The two gigantic warships lay abreast of each other in orbit over the world, dwarfing all of the other nearby cruisers, frigates and destroyers like alpha bulls in a herd of metal-and-ferrocrete beasts. Beneath them dark plumes stained the violet clouds of Zaramund, spilled from entire cities on fire. Millions of tonnes of orbital wreckage paid further testament to the fury of the Zaramundian rebellion and the subsequent response by the Emperor’s Legiones Astartes.
Two immense starships, each the pride of their respective fleet, each capable of laying waste to a world.
The Vengeful Spirit. The Terminus Est.
Names that resounded across the fledgling Imperium of Mankind alongside the Macragge’s Honour, the Invincible Reason, the Conqueror and a dozen others, many of them flagships that had led the fleets of the Emperor into the darkness and reclaimed the galaxy for humanity.
Aboard the Vengeful Spirit, the commander of the Terminus Est stood in the massive avenue hall approaching the strategium, surrounded by a throng of attendees both human and transhuman. Some were clad in the white armour of Calas Typhon’s own XIV Legion. Others bore the equally pale livery of their Luna Wolves hosts.
Huddled in groups around the giant warriors they attended was a sea of serfs, helots, servitors, strategos, orderlies, squires and many other titles beside, dependent upon role and Legion.
A splash of red robes to the left marked the presence of the highest-ranking Mechanicum officials present in the fleet. Surrounded by a gaggle of flesh-spare adepts stood Regulus – less a man, more a mechanical skeleton clad in slivers of flesh that appeared almost decorative upon his gold and steel form. Two gigantic vat-bred servitors carried between them a huge cog wrought of dull white material, engraved with sapphire-like runes. Typhon had no idea what the icon was for, and cared less. The ways of the Mechanicum were best not explored in detail.
A patch of gold just behind belonged to the Ayliet Phalanx, the Imperial Army auxilia regiment currently supporting the Luna Wolves. They were obscured from view as three immense warriors in the plate of the Luna Wolves moved between the auxilia commanders and Typhon.
Calas Typhon, a lieutenant commander in the First Great Company of the Death Guard, veteran of decades of bloody war, felt a shudder of excitement and trepidation as he looked ahead to the short processional that would take them into the grand hall of the primarch.
A twenty-metre colonnade of black stone decorated with a fretwork of silver wire flanked the great portal of the strategium. More of the Phalanxis lined the way, their weapons held in salute across their chests, company banners moving gently in the breeze of the artificial climate inside the battle-barge. In contrast to the bulky powered war-plate of the Space Marines, the Phalanxis wore long coats of golden mesh-scale, hemmed with thick banks of scarlet at wrist and ankle, broad belts studded with ceramite cinched around their waists. They carried jezzailli, long-barrelled lasguns more like spears with metre-long leaf-shaped bayonets affixed.
Amongst them were sergeants with bared power swords and presented volkite serpentae, here and there an officer with a high plume on his helm. Their weapons doubled as badges of office, metre-long rods that contained powerful shockfield generators that could pierce the hull of a tank or turn an unarmoured man to bloody slush with a touch. The glittering scale of majors and captains and lieutenants – and even one full war marshal with an ebon cloak held by a ruby starburst clasp – was covered by cuirasses of laminated black adorned with a white strike of lightning between moulded pectorals.
The flared helms of all had silver visors that covered their eyes, and their visible features were set with grim determination, but Typhon could see quivering lips and the smallest droplets of tears as the assembled veterans struggled to maintain their composure amidst such grand spectacle.
It was typical of Horus’ touch, his recognition of the efforts of others. Of all the grand and noble warriors who had fought for Zaramund he had chosen a hundred heroes from the unaugmented human regiment to act as honour guard to his act of commemoration.
Typhon glanced at his second-in-command, Hadrabulus Vioss, and smiled.
‘Remind me to convey congratulations to the Luna Wolves commander for a brief campaign perfectly executed. We are, of course, honoured to attend his ceremony of recompliance.’
‘Recompliance?’ Vioss raised an eyebrow. His handsome features took on a roguish look as he smiled back. ‘Have you just invented a new type of campaign?’
‘What else would you call it?’ Typhon asked. He kept his eye moving across the quiet, organised crowds that went about their duties with a cold, deliberate air. ‘Zaramund broke from compliance. Now it is compliant again. Recompliance.’
Vioss’ humour dissipated. ‘Who would have thought Zaramund would turn? One of the oldest reclaimed systems, essential to the first expeditions. How could the authorities of such an important world allow it to fall into such dissent? It was good that the primarch responded so swiftly and decisively.’
There was admiration in his voice. Admiration that Typhon shared. Horus had drawn together a considerable strike force in an astoundingly short time, and wielded it with brutal but effective command.
‘Essential,’ replied Typhon. ‘The disruption to warships and supplies bound to the expedition fleets would have been grave enough for such a reaction. The
threat to Terra if a conduit system, a major shipyard at that, was ever to turn back from service to the Emperor…’
Typhon considered what might have occurred had Horus not responded so dramatically to the interruption of his supply ships. Several dozen starships of different classes all poised within an easy warp jump of the Throneworld. They both fell silent at the thought, though for different reasons. A seed of an idea, barely formed, settled in the back of Typhon’s thoughts.
‘Serious mischief, rightly curtailed,’ Vioss said eventually, breaking Typhon’s nascent chain of thought. ‘A stroke of luck that the Luna Wolves returned when they did.’
‘No luck was involved, I’m sure. The primarch is canny like that. Some might see a few missing transports as just one of those irritating things that happens on campaign. A primarch, a commander like him, knows that nothing short of alien attack or rebellion would keep those ships from his fleet.’
Vioss accepted this without comment and they waited in silence for a few minutes until a lone figure appeared at the end of the colonnade. He was silhouetted in the light from the strategium, a giant compared to the soldiers of the Phalanxis, clad in Terminator armour even bigger than the war-plate of Typhon and his companion.
The figure approached purposefully and what little chatter there had been amongst the waiting crowd fell to silence. The Phalanxis presented their arms as the warrior advanced. The light of the colonnade revealed an impassive face, unyielding and weathered. His head was shaven but for a topknot, his cheeks and chin clean of all hair.
Ezekyle Abaddon, First Captain of the Luna Wolves, almost as feted as his primarch. He stopped five metres away. When he spoke, the deep growl was projected far into the avenue hall by the address systems of the Vengeful Spirit.
‘You may attend the commander now.’
With that simple statement, Abaddon turned and strode back towards his master. The delegates looked at each other, knowing that no formal order of entrance had been agreed or decreed but none wishing to rush forward in an undignified scrum.
A quintet of warriors broke from the throng to the left, stirring a murmur of conversation. Four were Space Marines, with the build of such, but the fifth, though wearing armour similar to the Legiones Astartes, was clearly shorter and slighter. They were clad in black battleplate, a winged sword symbol upon their shoulders. What was confusing to most was that the lesser of the warriors walked slightly ahead, the Space Marines clearly deferential to him a pace behind.
