The Solar War Read online

  Book 1 – THE SOLAR WAR

  Book 2 - THE LOST AND THE DAMNED

  (Autumn 2019)

  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

  Book 46 – RUINSTORM

  Book 47 – OLD EARTH

  Book 48 – THE BURDEN OF LOYALTY

  Book 49 – WOLFSBANE

  Book 50 – BORN OF FLAME

  Book 51 – SLAVES TO DARKNESS

  Book 52 – HERALDS OF THE SIEGE

  Book 53 – TITANDEATH

  Book 54 – THE BURIED DAGGER

  More tales from the Horus Heresy...

  PROMETHEAN SUN

  AURELIAN

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM

  THE CRIMSON FIST

  CORAX: SOULFORGE

  PRINCE OF CROWS

  DEATH AND DEFIANCE

  TALLARN: EXECUTIONER

  SCORCHED EARTH

  THE PURGE

  THE HONOURED

  THE UNBURDENED

  BLADES OF THE TRAITOR

  TALLARN: IRONCLAD

  RAVENLORD

  THE SEVENTH SERPENT

  WOLF KING

  CYBERNETICA

  SONS OF THE FORGE

  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

  Also available

  MACRAGGE’S HONOUR

  Dan Abnett and Neil Roberts

  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

  GREY TALON

  THE EITHER

  THE HEART OF THE PHAROS / CHILDREN OF SICARUS

  RED-MARKED

  ECHOES OF IMPERIUM

  ECHOES OF REVELATION

  THE THIRTEENTH WOLF

  VIRTUES OF THE SONS/SINS OF THE FATHER

  THE BINARY SUCCESSION

  DARK COMPLIANCE

  BLACKSHIELDS: THE FALSE WAR

  BLACKSHIELDS: THE RED FIEF

  HUBRIS OF MONARCHIA

  NIGHTFANE

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

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra

  Dramatis Personae

  PART ONE

  The Warp

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  PART TWO

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  The Warp

  PART THREE

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  The Warp

  Afterword

  Special Thanks

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘The Buried Dagger’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  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 end is here. The skies darken, colossal armies gather. For the fate of the Throneworld, for the fate of mankind itself...

  The Siege of Terra has begun.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  The Emperor, Master of Mankind, Last and First Lord of the Imperium

  Ho
rus, Warmaster, Primarch of the XVI Legion, Ascendant Vessel of Chaos

  The Primarchs

  Perturabo, ‘The Lord of Iron’, Primarch of the IV Legion

  Jaghatai Khan, ‘The Warhawk’, Primarch of the V Legion

  Rogal Dorn, Praetorian of Terra, Primarch of the VII Legion

  Sanguinius, Archangel of Baal, Primarch of the IX Legion

  The IV Legion ‘Iron Warriors’

  Forrix, ‘The Breaker’, First Captain, Triarch

  Vull Bronn, ‘The Stonewrought’, 45th Grand Battalion

  The V Legion ‘White Scars’

  Jubal Khan, ‘Lord of Summer Lightning’, Master of the Hunt

  Changshi, Bladeward to Jubal Khan

  The VII Legion ‘Imperial Fists’

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

  Halbract, 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

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

  Boreas, First Lieutenant of the Templars, First Company

  Massak, Librarian

  Archamus, Master of the Huscarls

  The XVI Legion ‘Sons of Horus’

  Ezekyle Abaddon, First Captain

  Horus Aximand, ‘Little Horus’, Captain, Fifth Company

  Falkus Kibre, ‘Widowmaker’, Captain, Justaerin Cohort

  Saduran, Warrior of the 201st Assault Battalion

  Ikrek, Warrior of the 201st Assault Battalion

  Thonas, Justaerin

  Gedephron, Justaerin

  Tybar, Justaerin

  Ralkor, Justaerin

  Sycar, Justaerin

  Urskar, Justaerin

  The XV Legion ‘Thousand Sons’

  Ahriman, Chief Librarian

  Ignis, Master of the Order of Ruin

  Menkaura, Blind Prophet of the Corvidae

  The XVII Legion ‘Word Bearers’

  Zardu Layak, ‘The Crimson Apostle’, Master of the Unspeaking

  Kulnar, Slave of the Anakatis Blade

  Hebek, Slave of the Anakatis Blade

  The Apostle

  The Chosen of Malcador

  Loken, Knight Errant

  The Mechanicum

  Kazzim-Aleph-1, Magos-Emissary

  Chi-32-Bet, Enginseer

  The Dark Mechanicum

  Sota-Nul, Emissary of Kelbor-Hal

  The Neverborn

  Samus, The End and the Death

  Imperial Army

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

  Imperial Personae

  Malcador, Regent of the Imperium

  Armina Fel, Senior Astropath

  Heliosa-78, Cult Matriarch of the Selenar

  Andromeda-17, Personified-scion of the Selenar

  Mersadie Oliton, Prisoner of the Unnamed Fortress, former Remembrancer

  Euphrati Keeler, The Saint, former Remembrancer

  Nilus Yeshar, Navigator

  Cadmus Vek, Celestial Mining Magnate

  Zadia Koln, Sub-mistress of the system freighter Antius

  Aksinya, Lifeward to Cadmus Vek

  ‘That is my home of love: if I have ranged,

  Like him that travels I return again,

  Just to the time, not with the time exchanged.’

  – attributed to the dramaturge Shakespire (fl. M2)

  ∞

  ‘Father…’

  He is waiting. He has always been waiting. In this place there is no time, not truly, not unless the forces within its tides dream it into being. Here, eternity is truth.

  ‘Father…’

  Slowly, with weariness and reluctance, He forms the idea of eyes, of a mouth, of limbs, of the chair beneath Him. Far off, there is another chair, and a thread of thought and will that tether Him back to a place of metal, and stone, and time.

  ‘Father…’

  He opens His eyes.

  Darkness lies before Him, extending through every dimension. Darkness, and Him alone. In that moment He feels the echo of every man or woman who has ever woken beside a guttering fire to see the night creeping closer as the flame-light fades.

  The darkness becomes a black mirror. He looks into His reflection: a man on a stone chair, old, dark skin clinging to the hollows of His cheeks. Iron and snow streak His beard. The shoulders and limbs beneath His plain, black robes are thin. Dust marks the bare soles of His feet. His eyes are clear, and there is neither kindness nor pity in them.

  The chair and the man sit on a narrow stone platform. Behind Him burns a wall of fire that curves up and away, blazing and flaring like the surface of a star.

  The reflection changes. For an instant, a figure of iron and blades with coal-furnace eyes is looking back at Him from a throne of chrome. Then it is gone, and the reflection is a blur of images falling one atop another: a golden warrior standing with drawn sword before the gates of a towering fortress, a figure before the mouth of a mountain cave, a boy with a stick and fear in his eyes, a queen with a spear atop a cliff, an eagle with ten wings beating against a thunder-threaded sky – on and on, images tumbling over each other like the faces of cards tossed through the air.

  ‘Is there any truth in you?’ asks the voice that comes from the dark.

  The images vanish and the darkness hangs before Him. It falls into the abyss beneath like a cascade of obsidian sand.

  ‘At the root of your lies, is there any truth, father?’

  The darkness becomes a forest, dark trunks reaching to an untouchable sky, roots crawling out and down into the abyss beneath. The man on the chair is sitting on the snow-covered ground, a fire burning before Him. A shadow moves out of the dark between the trees. It is huge, sable-furred and silver-eyed. It drags its shadow with it as it comes forwards. It pauses on the edge of the light.

  ‘You claim to be a man,’ says the wolf, ‘but that is a lie revealed to any that can see you here. You deny you wish godhood, but you raise up an empire to praise you. You call yourself the Master of Mankind, and perhaps that is the only truth you ever spoke – that you wish to make your children slaves.’

  The wolf tilts its head, and for a second it is not a wolf, but a bloated shadow, veined with lightning, its eyes holes punched into a red furnace.

  ‘But this son…’ growls the wolf, muscles coiling under black fur, lips peeling back over teeth, ‘…this son has returned to your cradle of lies.’

  The wolf leaps. The forest blinks to a sheet of curdled black and migraine colour. The shadow of a man reaches across the dark with hands that are claws. The fire flares, roaring up to become a burning wall and the claws rake the blaze. Shadow burns to ash and cinders. The wolf recoils, howling. Lightning laces the dark of the forest. The wolf pads along the boundary of the firelight. Behind it, other eyes shine in the deeper shadows between the trees, bright and cold as the light of cruel stars.

  The man turns His head. He is not looking at the wolf, but to the blackness beyond.

  ‘I deny you,’ He says, and in this place that is more real than life, yet as unreal as a dream, His words shake the dark like thunder.

  ‘Will you not even talk to me, father? Now, as your empire of lies ends, will you not tell me the truth?’

  ‘You are shadows,’ says the man, ‘nothing more. You offer nothing. You are nothing. You come with a puppet child, but you did not tell him why you need him. You need him because you have nothing that is true, no sword that is not a falsehood, no strength that is not a lie. You need him because you are weak. You need him. You fear him. And he will fail.’

  Laughter fills the night, beating l
ike wings, rattling with the sound of the dying trying to breathe, coiling over and over in chuckling loops. The darkness billows forwards stretching, coiling, squeezing. The man on the stone chair flinches. The fire bends and shrinks. The image of the man flickers too, and for a second He looks like a corpse sitting on a throne, the bones of His hands gripping its arms in pain.

  He closes His eyes.

  The image begins to blur, as though seen through a dusty wind. The laughter rises higher and higher.

  It has always been this way: again and again, in countless forms and metaphors, death and darkness wearing countless faces. On and on the cycle, repeating and growing in strength as the Night crowds hungrily in. And just as then, so now; there is only one answer to it.

  Murder.

  Blood and endings.

  Sacrifice and death.

  ‘I am returned,’ comes the voice of the wolf in the dark.

  ‘I deny you,’ says the man, as the image fades to the echo of a dream and laughter that does not end.

  Zero hour

  Remembrance of wolves

  Onslaught

  Terra

  On the first of Primus the sirens rang across Terra.

  On the myriad worlds conquered and ruled by the Imperium of Man, they talked of year divisions, of time sliced into a thousand equal slivers. First division, second division, third, and so on, without variation or character, until the weight of counting reached a thousand, and one year tipped over into the next. On worlds of endless night or blinding days, a year was the same. In an empire spanning a galaxy, anything else would have been meaningless.

  0000014.M31 was how surviving records would mark the first moment of that day, stamped and corrected for temporal accuracy, standardised and stripped of any meaning. But, here, on the world whose night and day and seasons had given mankind its concept of time, the old counting still meant something and so did the moment that one year died and another was born: the Feast of Two Faces, the Day of New Light, the Renewal – on and on went its names. But for longer than memory it had been the first of Primus, firstborn of the three hundred and sixty-five days that would follow, a day of hope and new beginnings.

  The turning of that year began with snow on the northern battlements of the Imperial Palace, where three brother demigods watched the night skies above. It began with the dawn light and icy chill reaching into a tower-top chamber and stirring the painted cards dealt by a man who was older than any knew. It began with the sirens calling out, one at first, high on the Palace spires, before the cry was picked up by others, on and on across the turning globe. The sound echoed through the mountain-sized space ports and rasped from vox-horns in the deep strata of the Atlantean Hives.