Praetorian of Dorn Read online

  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

  Book 38 – ANGELS OF CALIBAN

  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

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Gift of the Father

  Part Two

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Lord of Conquest

  Part Three

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Brothers of War

  Part Four

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘I Am Slaughter’

  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 ~

  The VII Legion ‘Imperial Fists’

  Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, Praetorian of Terra

  Archamus, Master of the Huscarls, ‘The Last of the First’

  Sigismund, Lord Castellan of the First Sphere, First Captain, Marshal of the Templars

  Fafnir Rann, Lord Seneschal, Captain of the First Assault Cadre

  Boreas, Sergeant, First Company

  Halbrecht, Lord Castellan of the Second Sphere, Fleet Master

  Effried, Lord Castellan of the Third Sphere, Seneschal

  Camba Diaz, Lord Castellan of the Fourth Sphere, Siege Master

  Demetrius Katafalque, Captain, 344th Company

  Kestros, Sergeant, 65th Squad, 344th Company

  The XX Legion ‘Alpha Legion’

  Alpharius, Primarch of the Alpha Legion

  Ingo Pech, Captain

  Mathias Herzog, Captain

  Phocron, Headhunter Prime

  Kel Silonius, Headhunter

  Kalix, Headhunter

  Hekaron, Headhunter

  Myzmadra, Operative

  Ashul, Operative

  Incarnus, Aventian progression savant

  Sork, Agent, captain of the scavenger vessel Wealth of Kings

  Omegon

  Imperial Personae

  Malcador, Regent of the Imperium

  Su-Kassen, Solar Command Staff, former Admiral of the Jovian Fleets

  Morhan, Strategos, 56th Veletaris Tercio, Second Solar Auxilia Cohort (the ‘Saturnyne Rams’)

  Chayo, Magos, Primary Voice on the Unbreakable Truth

  Armina Fel, Astropath-adjutant to Rogal Dorn
<
br />   Heliosa-78, Cult Matriarch of the Selenar

  Andromeda-17, Personified-scion of the Selenar

  Harrowing

  to draw a blade across the land in preparation for seed, the first step towards a final reaping.

  to cause distress, to create panic and suffering, and through such means banish calm and control.

  to break apart and turn over.– definition from The Ten Books of Meaning,

  pre-Unity, author unknown

  Prologue

  The Command of Serpents

  The ghost image collapsed into smoke. A mist of ectoplasm and ash hung in the air. The remains of the astropath lay on the deck, its flesh hissing as it dissolved into an oily foam which clung to its bones. The remains of its green robes looked like a rag pulled from a stagnant river.

  Horus Lupercal, Warmaster of a divided Imperium, looked away from the space where the apparition of his brother primarch had stood. Shadows crawled in the lines of his face, and bled from his eyes.

  ‘Will he do it?’ asked Maloghurst.

  Horus looked back to the collapsed heap that had been the psychic conduit for the audience.

  ‘He will,’ said Horus.

  ‘We cannot trust him.’

  Horus shook his head.

  ‘We never have been able to trust his word. Cradled in lies, as Rogal once said. He was right about that, at least.’

  Maloghurst was silent as the Warmaster looked back to where the ash had begun to settle on the deck.

  ‘I am trusting in his nature, rather than his words,’ said Horus, at last. ‘He will do what is needed not because I command it, but because it is what he wants, perhaps what he has wanted since before I set the galaxy to burn.’

  ‘He said it would take time to prepare...’

  ‘Time we have,’ said Horus quietly.

  Maloghurst felt words form on his tongue but struggle to take shape.

  ‘It must begin now, Mal,’ said Horus, the words seeming to answer Maloghurst’s silent doubts. ‘The first shot must be fired now, or it will not land before the true battle begins. Sol must shake in the firmament, and its protectors bleed.’

  ‘He can do it? He and his Legion are flawed weapons.’

  ‘He can do it. This is the war they were made for, the war they have been preparing to fight since we began. It is true that he and his sons are flawed, but that is only another reason to use him for this now, while his skills are still relevant.’

  Maloghurst bowed his head, his heart unsatisfied but his duty of counsel done.

  ‘As you will it, sire,’ he said.

  Horus held his gaze on his equerry for a moment, and then turned away, stalking back to his throne. He settled into its embrace with a murmur of armour servos. Cold light from the viewports fell across him, pouring darkness into the recesses of his face and armour.

  ‘We make for Terra,’ said the Warmaster, ‘and I would see it burning in greeting.’

  Part One

  Terra

  One

  System transport vessel Primigenia

  Outer Terran approaches

  ‘Bring us onto the line.’

  ‘Entering the line now.’

  ‘Transmitting clearance.’

  ‘Clearance acknowledged.’

  ‘Hold steady, and make ready for pilot cadre.’

  ‘Hold steady, aye.’

  Lieutenant Maecenas V Hon-II let the voices from the bridge wash across him. He sat on the throne of the second attendant deck officer, feet on the lapis and bronze instrument console, arms crossed across the rippled blue and yellow of his uniform. His eyes were closed, and his chin rested on his chest.

  All the command crew knew that this was the most likely position to find Maecenas in when he was on second attendance. They would not bother him, even though anyone else sleeping on watch would have been shackled, electro-whipped and left in the brig for the journey back to Jupiter. Not Maecenas, though; he was of the Consanguinity. Everyone else on the ship was oath or marriage bonded at best. That meant that Maecenas had the right to do as he pleased. After all, in a very real sense, the ship almost belonged to him. Had his uncle, or his first cousin, come onto the ship and told him to take his feet off the console, he would have obeyed, but the polar Shoal-city stations were a long way away in the wrong direction, and getting no closer. So the crew let him sleep through his watch. It was better than him being awake after all.

  He was awake, though. He was always awake.

  From behind his eyelids Maecenas watched the command crew prepare for the pilot cadre. They had all done this so many times that well-worn routine had replaced indignance. System-wrights began to power down their stations. Chromed neural cables snaked from their scalps to ducts in the floor. Their skin was almost translucent under the glow of their instruments. Wide, black eyes watched data values change on screens, and long-fingered hands made fine adjustments. All were Jovian bred, and most had never felt the pull of a planet’s surface or breathed unfiltered air.

  The Primigenia was a Jovian trading barge, a little over five kilo­metres from prow to stern. She had been born in the Shoal-cities above Jupiter’s pole, and had swum the solar voids for twenty-eight generations. Her engines and systems were not the products of Mars, but the secrets of the void clans saved from the darkness of Old Night. In times past she had hauled plunder from the edges of the system, and traded with the warlords of Terra. Now she was one link in a chain of ships spooling through the system’s inner and outer reaches. Filled with supplies she passed through controlled corridors of space until she docked at one of the Throneworld’s outer void stations, and unloaded her cargo. Rogal Dorn might have barred its gates, but Terra’s hunger could never be sated. So, the Primigenia and her sisters made their way to and from Terra again and again, like laden mules to the gates of a citadel.

  ‘We are at dead stop. Monitor craft coming alongside,’ said one of the crew.

  Maecenas watched the ship’s master glance at the first attendant and nod.

  ‘Extend docking gantries,’ called First Attendant Sur Nel Hon-XVII. She was Maecenas’ second cousin by oath, and he made a show of holding both that connection and her rank in contempt. She hated him in return. That was good. It stopped her noticing anything else about him.

  ‘Pilot cadre on board. Looks like a full inspection force,’ Sur Nel muttered, as data scrolled across her visor.

  The shipmaster let out a long breath and shook his head.

  ‘This is not going to move quickly.’

  ‘It never does,’ replied Sur Nel.

  Behind his closed eyes, Lieutenant Maecenas V Hon-II began to count the seconds, one after another.

  Gobi tox-wastes

  Terra

  They rode ahead of the dawn light, the crawler shaking, the smell in the crew compartment getting worse by the second. It had been eighteen hours since they had left the settlement at the edge of the tox-plateau. Eighteen hours of twelve humans sitting and sweating in a metal box while the night passed by unseen.

  Most of the scavenger contingent had started the journey with jokes and attempts at conversation. That had stopped when it became clear that Myzmadra and her two colleagues were not interested in being friendly. The scavs had retreated into silence, fiddling with their weaponry and equipment. They were all big, all vat-graft muscle and crude augmetics. They had a lot of scars too: jagged craters from bullets, pale splashes from acid burns, and furrows from knife cuts. Most of them wore what armour they had over bare skin, as though daring anyone who fought them to give them a new scar. They smelt of gun oil, sump liquor and greed.

  Myzmadra looked at the triangulator on her wrist, and frowned. Cogs whirled and bubbles of mercury shifted behind the crystal casing.

  ‘What is that thing?’ growled the scav sat opposite her. She looked up. He was a big one
. The rest of the gang called him Grol. He had a drill hammer instead of a right arm, and a pair of machine claws bonded to his spine. His face was red chrome above his teeth, and he had slots for eyes. She looked back down at the triangulator without replying.

  ‘It’s a triangulator.’ She looked up again to see who had spoken. The scav boss, who had said his name was Nis, grinned back at her. She caught the glint of the silver inlay in his ceramite teeth. His eyes were cones of focusing lenses, and his hands were spiders of brass. His grin widened. ‘Clever little piece of archeotech. Lets you find somewhere even though the rad is bad out here and the signal storms are worse. Worth its weight...’

  He let the word hang on the edge of his grin.

  She held his gaze. The rest of her was utterly still, the fingers of her right hand poised above the triangulator. Inside her body glove she tensed muscle groups, and let the breath settle to the bottom of her lungs. She was poised, a single reflex away from movement, while outside of her skin nothing had moved.

  She held Nis’ gaze. He raised his brass hands.

  ‘Just joking,’ he said, grinning wider. ‘After all, you pay the likes of us to come out here and dig, you got to have something worth finding, and a way to find it, right?’

  She nodded, and looked back down to the spinning cogs and mercury.

  Numbers had started to tick around the edge of the triangulator.

  ‘Close,’ said Ashul softly from beside her. She hadn’t even realised he was awake. He had folded his hands over his chest and gone to sleep just after they had left the settlement, not moving since. ‘And right on time too,’ he said, pulling his rebreather mask down over his face.

  She took a mask from the rack behind her, and gave the figure on the other side of her a nudge.

  ‘I am quite awake,’ said Incarnus. ‘How I could be thought to be otherwise under the circumstances is to stretch imagination to its outer tolerance.’ He ran his fingers over his scalp, and Myzmadra could see a skim of moisture on his skin. He blinked, grey lids flicking over iris-less eyes. She handed him the mask.