by Guy Haley
Backlist
More Warhammer 40,000 stories from Black Library
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1: I AM SLAUGHTER
2: PREDATOR, PREY
3: THE EMPEROR EXPECTS
4: THE LAST WALL
5: THRONEWORLD
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A Space Marine Battles book, containing the novella The Hunt for Magnus and the novel Battle of the Fang
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DAMNOS
An Ultramarines collection
DAMOCLES
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OVERFIEND
Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Salamanders novellas Stormseer, Shadow Captain and Forge Master
ARMAGEDDON
Contains the Black Templars novel Helsreach and novella Blood and Fire
Legends of the Dark Millennium
SHAS’O
A Tau Empire collection
ASTRA MILITARUM
An Astra Militarum collection
ULTRAMARINES
An Ultramarines collection
FARSIGHT
A Tau Empire novella
SONS OF CORAX
A Raven Guard collection
SPACE WOLVES
A Space Wolves collection
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Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer 40,000
Illustrations
Circle of Honour
The Black Pilgrims
Helbrecht: The Crusader
The Uncanny Crusade
The Glorious Tomb
Only Blood
Season of Shadows
About the Author
An Extract from ‘I Am Slaughter’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
Warhammer 40,000
It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Circle of Honour
The settlement was a foreign object encysted in the forest, crowded by gigantic magenta gynosperms. The sky was a ragged hole two hundred and fifty metres above, heavy with the storm. Through foliage dying from exposure to the wind, the many storeys of the layered ecosystem could be glimpsed. Amid this profusion of xenos life, the homes of men were drab things of plascrete, entirely alien to their setting. This was Bornvel, a backwater outpost of the Imperium. A place of heresy.
Initiate Brusc of the Xereus Crusade stopped his finger on the trigger of his boltgun. The clarity of the moment lent the slight friction of his gauntlet against the trigger as an intolerable weight. He was intimately aware of the grains of dust from the white rain grinding between the metal surfaces. The tendons of his finger were tensed, the ending of an existence a fraction of a millimetre away. Such a small distance between life and oblivion.
‘Please,’ said the woman kneeling in the mud, her arms protectively around her children. ‘Please.’
Pale rain pounded on Brusc’s armour, running from its every curve in gritty rivulets. The rain plastered his hair to his scalp and ran into his eyes. It puddled in the hollow at the top of his cuirass, spilling from there in a fidgeting runnel. His tabard was heavy with the rain’s silt load, the insignia whitened as if soaked in plaster. A finger of cold wormed its way downward across his chest, the sticky feeling of fresh foam sealant creeping behind it. There was a tiny breach in the heavy plastek of his neckseal. A small wound inflicted on his wargear when his helmet had taken a hit had forced him to discard it.
All the universe telescoped inward. This world, this rebellion, his life, her life, all reduced to one fragment of time – a moment that hinged upon the mechanisms of his weapon, and the will that would set it into action.
Thick smoke rose from the settlement. They had hit the church of the Returning Emperor at the centre first. Other buildings had been targeted and destroyed. They burned only briefly. The downpour put out the blazes, dousing the fury of the Space Marines and sending it out as black fumes to be lost in the towering forest.
The woman and children wore the plain robes of the cult. Only she looked up at the Space Marine – her offspring, a boy of around sixteen standard Terran years and a girl of about six, were bent double, prostrate in the mud. Hands over their faces, they appeared to be praying. Perhaps they were.
His hesitation encouraged the woman. She licked her lips free of the silty rain. ‘We did not know we had done wrong, please. We repent! All we wish to do is follow the Emperor. If we honour him incorrectly, teach us,’ she pleaded. ‘You are an honoured Angel of Death! Have mercy, teach us. Please, please,’ she clutched at her motionless children. The boy moaned.
Brusc kept his unwavering aim on the woman. His mind dispassionately ran through what would happen to her should he perform his duty. The firing pin in his gun would detonate the initial propellant charge of the bolt in the chamber. This low-yield explosive would push the round from the barrel at sub-sonic speeds. Once free of the gun, the main propellant load would ignite, accelerating the bolt – in essence a miniature missile – twice the speed of sound over a space of half a metre. The momentum alone would blast the woman apart. After impact, the tiny machine-spirit of the munition would trigger the main charge upon the detection of a preset mass. That might be in her body – should enough of it survive the initial hit – or, if not, the ground. Either way, the woman would be split open, her innards spread between one point six and two metres around her. She would cease to resemble a human being.
The shrapnel would probably kill her children instantly – he calculated sixty-three per cent likelihood for the boy, and seventy-four per cent for the girl. If not, they would die shortly after from their wounds. These probabilities were not good enough. Despite the preciousness of his ammunition, he would also spare a round for both of them, heretics though they were. He wo
uld not let them suffer. He was not a monster.
A flight of Land Speeders streaked overhead, grav-plates buzzing. Distant heavy bolter fire sounded from the edge of the town as they banked around. The lesser barks of bolt pistols blurted through the rain. Somewhere, someone was screaming.
Rain poured down his arm, running along the oath chain binding his bolter to his wrist. Drops pattered hurriedly from the links into the milky slur of the street, as if eager to be at one with it.
With one squeeze, he would turn that mud red. It was his duty. It was his oath.
And yet he did not fire.
The human prior of Majesty’s monasterium bade Brusc halt before the door of the sanctum. He raised his staff, and intoned the ritual request.
‘At this date of the year four hundred and twenty-six, millennium forty-one, Terran checksum one, in the tenth millennium of the most holy and beneficent Emperor’s reign over the scattered scions of mankind at this time of the third hour of the second watch of the eighty-ninth day of the Madrigal Crusade and upon this, the most holy vessel strike cruiser Majesty, blessed be its name and purpose, Brother-Initiate Brusc of the Black Templars Chapter, rightful and most noble heirs to the Primarch Rogal Dorn, may his name ever be sacred, and his most holy champion Sigismund, makes a presentation for his inclusion to the most honourable Brotherhood of the Sword. He would take upon himself its responsibilities and its honours, its oaths and its vows.’
The prior rapped five times upon the doors to the Sanctum of the Majesty. It was a broad entrance, peaked at the apex of the arch, wherefrom glowered the judging face of some long dead ecclesiarch. Brusc had been through that door thousands of times, but today it had a doomy significance that made it novel and disquieting. The preacher was careful not to strike the bold red templar’s cross emblazoning the doors, though his staff made no mark upon the black-and-white checked plasteel that surrounded it. ‘How does the temple answer?’
From speakers carried by cyber-cherubs fluttering overhead, a deep voice replied, ‘Your entreaty is heard, Prior Godwine. Brother Brusc is expected. His presentation is accepted.’
Locks disengaged loudly and the doors parted. Air hissed with slight pressure difference as the seal was breached. Warmer air – redolent of incense, blood and sweat – blew from within.
Prior Godwine bowed, the lengths of the sacred maniple wrapped about his left arm brushed the floor.
‘As you command, so I obey, Lord Chaplain Hrollo. Praise be.’ The abbot stood and sketched the Templar’s cross in the air before his face before turning to Brusc. The Space Marine bowed low and the prior dipped his forefinger and index finger into a silver vessel hanging at his waist. With sanctified rose oil, he drew the Templar’s cross upon the crown of Brusc’s head.
‘You have the blessing of the Emperor, Lord Brusc,’ said the prior. ‘You may proceed. Praise be.’
Brusc rose, the servos of his armour whining on the edge of hearing. He towered over the human priest. The marks of failed second stage implantation marred the man’s skin. It was a wonder he still lived.
‘Good luck,’ said the prior.
Brusc nodded once. Ordinarily he might have a quip for the man; he was ever being reprimanded for his less than serious nature.
Not today.
He entered the Sanctum as solemn as a High Lord.
Neophyte Brusc ghosted over the moors under a mercilessly open sky, his light scout armour flickering with the false-image camouflage of cameleoline. Heather-like plants stretched off in every direction, heavy with small, tight, blue flowers. Their twigs were slight but tough, closely packed and springy to walk upon. Brusc skimmed his feet carefully through them to avoid breaking the stems. He peered through the heather, avoiding the coarse sand or soft peat that would easily take a footprint. This manner of walking slowed the squad, but the xenos were fine trackers. Whatever the Black Templars could do to obscure their trail, they did.
The four neophytes and their initiate leader did not speak but moved cautiously, eyes watching for the xenos’ avian spies when not searching the ground.
Neophyte Parsival laid a hand on Brusc’s shoulder. He pointed toward the sun. Hiding in its glare was a deltoid shape.
‘You do it, brother. You are the better shot.’
Brusc lowered his visor over his eyes and raised his sniper rifle. The goggles adjusted and compensated for the sunlight, revealing a large, four-winged bird. Brusc zeroed in, and stroked the trigger. The gun’s report was a gentle snap, generated by a needle-thin laser beam superheating the air.
The creature’s wings folded and it plummeted into the heather. Blue flowers jerked and the avian was gone.
‘Good shot,’ said Parsival quietly.
‘Well,’ breathed Brusc. ‘I think we can safely say they know we are coming.’
‘That they will, neophyte,’ said Brother-Initiate Amund, their mentor on this mission. ‘Speed will serve us better now than stealth.’
The Templars covered the remaining three kilometres to the edge of the valley swiftly. They fell on their bellies ten metres from the brow of the hill and crawled to the brink.
Many unexpected valleys broke the moorland, steep-sided and deep. They were almost ravines, walled with crags of grey rock that sparkled with veins of quartz. Thin streams knifed along the bottoms, brown and swift. Trees gathered thinly round the boggy land that lined the streams, thickening into forest as the valleys deepened. This valley was no different.
Despite their earlier observation by the aliens’ pet, the Black Templars had arrived unannounced. Spindly legged xenos went about their mysterious business. Their camp was split into three collections of tents, clustered on those rare patches of ground both flat and dry. Like their pets, the aliens were hexapods. They utilised all six limbs to propel themselves, rearing up their front third when they needed to bring their foremost paws – somewhat akin to hands – off the earth and into employment. Their throats sported crimson wattles, their skin was elsewhere smooth and pink where it was not banded brown with natural, keratinous armour plates.
‘Filth,’ spat Parsival. ‘I’ve not seen such degenerates before.’
‘Oh,’ said Brusc mildly. ‘And your career in our order is already long and glorious.’
Parsival elbowed Brusc hard below the pauldron, where his arm was unarmoured. Once there were such amity blows, but rivalry had made them sharper. The longer they had been members of the Chapter, and the more their fellow recruits dwindled in number, the more they had grown apart in temperament.
‘Silence,’ whispered Amund. ‘Concentrate on your task, or my report to your knights will not be favourable.’ The initiate scanned the valley. ‘Neophyte Lothic,’ he asked. ‘Give the squad a good course of action.’
‘Assassinate their leadership and retreat,’ Lothic replied instantly. ‘We are ordered here on a disruption strike, and are well placed to execute our orders and be away before the xenos can respond.’
‘Those are indeed our orders,’ said Amund. ‘You listened. Praise be.’
Parsival disagreed. ‘We should deploy two of us there.’ He pointed at a crag whose top extended above the lip of the valley. ‘One there and one there,’ he said, indicating two other locations. ‘I’d say work our way around the head of the valley, attack from two sides, but they have many of their eyes here.’ A long perch was in the middle of the camp. The aliens’ metre-high birds were tethered to it, hoods over their eyes. ‘We risk discovery the longer we take.’
‘If speed is of the essence, why then not attack from one place?’ asked Amund.
‘We will sow confusion amongst them. They are primitive with little knowledge of firearms. They will locate us slowly if we are dispersed. Should one group attack, then the other pair may offer fire support. We can then withdraw once their leaders are dead. It is a balance. Expediency versus perfection.’
Amund purs
ed his lips and nodded. ‘A not entirely foolish strategy, Neophyte Parsival. And what will my role be in this?’
Brusc spoke before Parsival could respond. ‘You role, brother, is to watch over Parsival, and ensure he does not slip and fall in his excitement.’
Amund scowled. ‘Your levity is rarely welcome, Neophyte Brusc. You shall be disciplined for this when we returned.’
Brusc’s crooked smile vanished from his face.
‘Now, perhaps you have something better to add? If not–’
‘Actually, brother-initiate, I do,’ Brusc interrupted. Amund motioned for him to continue. ‘Parsival’s split fire pattern is sound, although I would advise the placing of the second group further along the valley lip. The xenos will see us quickly enough, if they get their hawks into the air. Moving a little further out won’t take much longer. I agree with Parsival that the further apart we are the better.’
‘So you suggest caution?’
Brusc’s smile returned. ‘No, I advise that we finish every last one of them!’
‘Those are not our orders,’ said Amund reasonably. There was invitation to disagree in his voice. ‘Thirty-six of them and five of us. Are these good odds?’
‘Thirty-six alien filth and five Black Templars, brother. We are a forward group acting partly under our own initiative. This escalation of our goals is fitting, given the circumstances, and achievable.’
Amund nodded. ‘See here, our sharp-tongued warrior might make a fool of himself, but he has the making of a true crusader. If presented with an opportunity to further the Emperor’s plan, we should take it. Recklessness is a fool’s trait, and brings the fool’s reward of death. But ours is not a timid order. Where it is possible to attack, to advance, without undue risk, then it is our duty to do so. Those are our ways. Brusc reminds us of them. Praise be.’
‘Praise be,’ responded the others, some more enthusiastically than others.
In five minutes the neophytes had worked their way into position. They waited, tense with expectation. Often in their impatience they looked from their gunsights to the place where their leader was hidden, indistinguishable from the heather in his cameleoline. Long minutes, then hours, saw the yellow sun track painfully through the sky. Small biting insects vexed them.
