Old Earth Read online

  Backlist

  The Primarchs

  PERTURABO: THE HAMMER OF OLYMPIA

  MAGNUS THE RED: MASTER OF PROSPERO

  LEMAN RUSS: THE GREAT WOLF

  ROBOUTE GUILLIMAN: LORD OF ULTRAMAR

  The Horus Heresy series

  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

  Book 38 – ANGELS OF CALIBAN

  Book 39 – PRAETORIAN OF DORN

  Book 40 – CORAX

  Book 41 – THE MASTER OF MANKIND

  Book 42 – GARRO

  Book 43 – SHATTERED LEGIONS

  Book 44 – THE CRIMSON KING

  Book 45 – TALLARN

  More tales from the Horus Heresy...

  CYBERNETICA

  SONS OF THE FORGE

  WOLF KING

  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

  WOLF HUNT

  HUNTER’S MOON

  THIEF OF REVELATIONS

  TEMPLAR

  ECHOES OF RUIN

  MASTER OF THE FIRST

  THE LONG NIGHT

  IRON CORPSES

  RAPTOR

  Download the full range of Horus Heresy audio dramas from blacklibrary.com

  Also available

  MACRAGGE’S HONOUR

  A Horus Heresy graphic novel

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Vulkan Lives’

  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 ~

  Terra

  The Emperor

  Malcador the Sigillite

  The XVIII Legion, ‘Salamanders’

  Vulkan, Lord of Drakes, primarch

  Atok Abidemi, Draaksward

  Barek Zytos, Draaksward

  Igen Gargo, Draaksward

  Nuros, Ally of Shadrak Meduson

  The X Legion, ‘Iron Hands’

  Shadrak Meduson, Warleader of the Iron Tenth

  Jebez Aug, Iron Father, Hand Elect to the Warleader

  Goran Gorgonson, Apothecary of Clan Lokopt

  Lumak, Captain of Clan Avernii

  Mechosa, Captain of Clan Sorrgol

  Arkul Theld, Captain of Clan Ungavaar

  Kuleg Rawt, Iron Father of Clan Raukaan

  Naduul Norsson, Iron Father of Clan Atraxii

  Raask Arkborne, Iron Father of Clan Felg

  Kernag, Iron Father
of Clan Garrsak

  Autek Mor, Iron Father of Clan Morragul

  The XIX Legion, ‘Raven Guard’

  Dalcoth, Captain

  Kaylar Norn, Apothecary

  The VII Legion, ‘Imperial Fists’

  Rogal Dorn, Primarch

  Archamus, Huscarl

  The XVI Legion, ‘Sons of Horus’

  Tybalt Marr, Captain

  Cyon Azedine, Company champion

  Kysen Scybale, Sergeant

  The XVII Legion, ‘Word Bearers’

  Barthusa Narek, Vigilator

  Adeptus Arbites

  Vohan Gethe, Warden-Primus of the 87th, precinct ‘Peacemakers’

  Ebba Renski, Proctor

  Eldar

  Eldrad Ulthran, Farseer of Ulthwé

  Slau Dha, Autarch, member of the Cabal

  Others

  Cartur Umenedies, Imperial Judge

  Damon Prytanis, Immortal, operative of the Cabal

  John Grammaticus, Immortal, operative of the Cabal

  Aghalbor, Greater daemon of Nurgle, the Bringer of Poxes

  Gahet, Member of the Cabal

  Kheradruakh, Shade stalker of the shadowed path

  Prologue

  The lightning shard, broken

  Fever stained the air and made it sour.

  It was fear that had turned the mobs rabid. Fear that had burned down the buildings. Fear that had usurped law and order, and turned kin against kin.

  Of him. Of his coming.

  The seer heard bells as he trod softly through streets made black by the soot of urgent manufacture. The great war machine churned here, as it did across every human world in this beleaguered galaxy, swallowing lives and spitting out bullets in return. Discordant and loud, the bells whipped up a clangour that set teeth on edge and nerves fraying. They did not preach religion, for religion was dead. Their sound prophesied doom, and it ­echoed through the warren, through the hanging corpses, through the ruins of the township, invigorating further acts of violence and despair.

  ‘The end has come! He is upon us!’ a doomsayer wailed, as he shuffled into the seer’s path. The poor wretch had a bullet caster’s garb. His fingertips were dark from his labours, but he had given all that up to embrace despair instead.

  ‘He has come!’

  Spittle sprayed from the froth accumulating on the man’s bottom lip. His eyes widened as his fervour grew.

  One of the seer’s retinue stepped forwards to kill the doomsayer, but the seer raised a hand to stop him.

  ‘They are barbarians, no better than animals,’ uttered the warrior with undisguised contempt.

  ‘Perhaps,’ replied the seer, ‘but they are merely afraid. Don’t you ever feel afraid, exarch?’

  Humbled by the seer’s rebuke, the warrior fell back into position amongst the others.

  The seer regarded the man, who had paused to frown at their strange words, spoken in a language and a manner he could not comprehend. So bemused was he that he did not react when the seer pressed two fingers against his forehead. The man slumped at once and fell still, quiescent.

  ‘There is not time enough to calm them all,’ said the warrior watching on. ‘Our path leads to violence.’

  The seer sighed at that, and nodded.

  ‘Yes, as does every path now before us.’

  Even here, on this backwater world, the signs were evident. Banners proclaiming fealty to Terra lay mouldering in runnels of polluted filth. Marble statues immortalising the reign of the Master of Mankind had been pulled from their foundations and left to glory in dirt. Even the lawmakers with their mauls and shields could not bring order. Enlightenment had promised that. Instead, old gods had returned. Not just here, but everywhere. Madness had come with them and set men against men. Chaos.

  All of this, the seer knew. All of this, he had seen.

  The shadows of rioters gathered in the distance, hungry and energetic when cast by the dancing flames. Such was the mob’s eagerness to spill blood that their shouts threatened to drown out the bells.

  The seer looked up at a skyline wracked with the red glow of reflected fire. A body, revealed at first in silhouette, hung suspended between two towers of a broken garrison house. An icon of a clenched fist holding a set of scales was displayed proudly upon the building’s facade. Filth besmirched the image, a crudely daubed invective. The hanged man had been beaten. Gouges glistened in place of his eyes, and his uniform was torn and burnt.

  The seer averted his gaze. His grip on his staff hardened. The distant shouting grew louder.

  ‘Come, they will return soon.’

  ‘We have nothing to fear from them,’ the warrior snorted.

  ‘No, exarch, we do not,’ said the seer, ‘but these people have seen enough unnecessary bloodshed.’

  They moved on.

  Smoke occluded the way deeper into the township, but insanity had spread more virulently and destructively than fire ever could. Sigils began to appear, drawn in blood or rudely carved into stone and wood. The seer recognised an old tongue represented by those marks. They were runes, but not of the eldar race. Unwords. Man should not make such utterances; to do so invited damnation.

  Though hidden by his helm, the seer’s scowl fashioned a certain tone.

  ‘Ruin is here… The Great Enemy, She Who Thirsts, the First Doom and the Last War. Hold fast,’ he told his warriors and the cadre stiffened in alertness. ‘Ruin is here. It is here.’

  The smoke, redolent of cooking flesh, gave way to a triumphal square. A sweeping arch of pitted stone cast a long shadow over the plaza, partly hiding corpses heaped in disarray.

  The sigils had been cut into the skin of these victims, and the bodies formed a grim procession that led beneath the arch and to a ghetto of old habs and warehouses. The seer felt his sword hand tremble as he made the first step forwards. Figures lurked at the periphery of the square, cackling quietly, sorrowfully, at the strange warriors amongst them. The warriors’ curved helms and sleek armour seemed utterly incongruous amidst such depravity.

  None challenged them, those present either too afraid or too insane to care.

  In the ghetto the bodies continued, a trail rather than a procession now. They led to an industrial district and stopped at the shuttered door to a munitions warehouse.

  ‘Every bullet, every blade,’ said the seer. ‘It will not be enough.’

  ‘Then let us act,’ said the warrior, the exarch, eyeing the shuttered door dangerously. His blade was drawn. The seer felt the influence of the Bloody-Handed in the other, but kept it at bay in himself. He would need his good sense for what was to come. Let the ­others bloody themselves. That was their path.

  ‘That is why you are here,’ said the seer as they advanced on the warehouse.

  The door proved no impediment, yielding easily to a flashing diresword.

  Darkness choked the warehouse within, though it posed no challenge to the interlopers. The seer led them, and none would gainsay him.

  Inside, away from the streets, the bells and the shouting faded to a dull susurration. A new sound pervaded: rhythmic, hymnal and ritualistic.

  Through a dense weave of corridors, the seer and his ten-strong warrior cadre emerged into a wide-open hall lit by crackling ­braziers. Old rubrics, carved into plates of sheet metal and extolling the virtue of labour, swayed on gantry chains, their messages defiled by more bloody runes.

  A horde had gathered, women as well as men. They looked ordinary. A few wore robes, but the garments were little more than dirty smocks. All had taken up the chant and so lost were they in their dark devotions that none saw the warriors creeping in their midst.

  The seer let his retinue overtake him now, slipping left and right to the room’s periphery. He could feel the veil thinning and clutched his staff tighter. His teeth clenched. Th
e tang of hot copper prickled his tongue, and he slowed his breathing in order to stay focused.

  A demagogue led the sermon, standing above the flock, raised upon a mound of flensed skulls. He was much larger and broader than the others. A transhuman, his dark skin scarified with runic iconography. Robes swathed his muscular form in the fashion of a priest, but he had the bearing of a warrior, though his only vis­ible weapon was a silver dagger. It resonated with power, and in its unique aura the seer recognised something of the other one they had tried to set on the path, and failed.

  So they butchered him as well as taking his head, he realised sadly.

  Sitting before the demagogue in the crudely sawn cap of another flensed skull were eight shards. Grey stone, akin to long arrowheads, unremarkable – no one without the sight would have given them a second glance.

  But they had power, and of a greater magnitude than the knife; they glowed as brightly as a newborn sun in the seer’s witch-sight.

  The demagogue looked up. The chanting did not stop. It grew more urgent. The flock awakened from its torpor, possibly at the silent insistence of their leader. Crude blades were drawn, catching the meagre light in their dirty metal. Cudgels joined them. Flails unfurled, their chains clanking dully where they touched the ground.

  All eyes fell upon the seer, who stood alone to confront the droning mob. He drew his sword at last as they closed upon him, and the seer felt the pull of Khaine on his humours. Blood would be spilled here – the exarch had been right about that at least. The warriors ghosted around the edges of the room, as yet unseen. But as the air began to vibrate and a low hum gnawed at the seer’s nerves, and the presence of something close at hand intruded on his thoughts, he spoke into their minds.

  Kill them now,+ he sent urgently.

  Light and noise exploded into being like shattering glass.

  Those cultists at the edges of the mob barely had time to glimpse their killers before the warriors cut them down with scything rounds from their weapons. Those deeper into the crowd, closer to the heart of the ritual, raised their knives and clubs in defence… and lasted a few more seconds.

  The exarch’s sword carved a pretty red arc, cleaving limbs and severing heads as he leapt through the throng. It was efficient, but far from cold.

  ‘Blood runs…’ he uttered.

  He cut a man across the midriff, separating top and bottom with a flourish.

  ‘Anger rises…’

  Another he split from crown to groin.