Contents

Cover

Old Earth – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

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. The 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.

‘Death wakes…’

A third he impaled, spinning as he made the kill, his momentum carrying him forwards and pulling free his blade.

‘War calls!’

Except this was not war, it was slaughter. But, the seer reminded himself as his own assailants recoiled from the sudden attack, it was necessary.

The chanting horde diminished before this onslaught until just eight of the supplicants and their demagogue remained. As one, the eight shrank back towards their leader, rancid moths drawn to his corrupt flame, still chanting but now with fear in their eyes.

Not fear of death, the seer realised with disgust, but fear of failing to complete the ritual.

The first of the eight collapsed. Her eyes had burned out, leaving twin hollows defined by rings of blackened skin, her soul cored from within and offered up to a presence clawing at the veil to the beyond. Two more followed – one to the ritual, gratefully slumping to his knees, another shredded by a scything round.

It had only been seconds since the attack began, but the battle dragged as if time had slowed.

Another cultist burned up from within, head arched back, smoke issuing from his lips, the chant half formed as he surrendered his soul to the nameless dark.

He means to unleash something, and quit this place, the seer realised.

‘Silence them now!’

The exarch struck down three with swift sword strokes. Some of the armed cultists yet remained, but he ignored them in favour of the supplicants. Though many tried, none could touch him. A fourth fell to his warriors. The last had her throat slit by the demagogue as he chanted with ever greater fervour. His voice became a bellow as it called forth evil from beyond the veil.

The seer cried out again as two of his retinue died, their armour parting like silk before the demagogue’s silver blade. Their innards uncoiled from their bodies, contorting into ophidian horrors and wrapping around the limbs of their comrades.

The exarch still stood, but even he stalled when confronted by this corruption.

Only the seer remained undaunted.

‘It is pure evil! Do not baulk before it. Smite it!’ he cried.

His witchblade severed the gruesome tendrils of flesh as he advanced on the demagogue, the presence in the warp pressing hard against his psychic aegis now. A trickle of blood ran from his nose, hidden by the mask of his ghosthelm. Every step brought a fresh grimace. His fingers spasmed as they fought to grip his sword. He smelled old meat, the taint of spoiled milk even through his armour’s filters.

The demagogue lunged, his silver blade perversely pure in the wan torchlight. A sudden moment of clarity came with it as the seer briefly touched the demagogue’s unguarded mind.

Crouched over a hulking form of iron… Black armour, black sand. A splayed hand, a neck long severed, the head absent from the body. Butchers flocked, foul and rabid. Cutting, cutting, sawing at miraculous silver, still vital even with the soul fled and the body inert. A finger came loose, its pointed shape like that of a dagger…

‘Enough!’ declared the seer, parting the demagogue’s wrist from his arm. His fist still gripped the dagger as it struck the ground. The agony that wracked the cult leader as the witchblade met his graven flesh brought the seer no pleasure.

Bloodied and on his knees, the mound of skulls scattered and crushed, the demagogue regarded the seer with scorn.

‘All your efforts, all your endeavour… You are desperate, witch.’ He smiled, but could not entirely hide his pain as he clutched the stump of his arm. Sweat beaded his bald pate. It was no ordinary wound. A witchblade possessed a psychic resonance. It could hurt the soul and had cut the demagogue deeper than the extent of his flesh. ‘Do you know who I am, whom I serve?’

The seer regarded the man, fallen so far from the grace he had been given.

‘You are Quor Gallek of the Word, stranded in this place when your vessel failed you,’ he said, the mon-keigh’s crude language jarring on his tongue, ‘and it is because of whom you serve that I am here. You sought to make a door, uncaring of what you might leave behind in your passing. That has failed. But you are right…’ the seer added, as the ache in his mind began to abate and the air ceased to shimmer.

Quor Gallek flinched, his mouth agape as the witchblade pierced his chest.

‘I am, indeed, most desperate,’ the seer told him, and fed a surge of psychic lightning through the blade.

As he pulled free his sword, he wiped the blade clean then gladly sheathed it. The demagogue convulsed as psychic tendrils coursed through his flesh and mind, rendering both husks. He slumped forwards, smoke issuing from empty eye sockets, and stirred no more. The seer paid him no further heed, and instead stooped to retrieve the eight shards, placing them one by one into a casket brought forth from within his robes.

‘Even I can feel their power,’ said the exarch, briefly regarding the dead demagogue. The killing mood had left him for now.

‘They are god-touched,’ said the seer, before conceding, ‘in a way, at least.’

‘And they will do what you claim?’

‘Let us hope so.’

They took their dead with them, moving silently and swiftly through the burning township. The fires had worsened, the mobs grown bolder. It would not be long now, the seer knew. This horror was far from isolated, this town not the only one succumbing to madness and fear. Many worlds and their bastions would fall and swear fealty before invasion was even necessary. If Horus’ mere presence prompted such mania, then the task the seer had set himself grew ever more important.

The ship lay hidden at the edge of the settlement. Its sleek curves reflected no light and it hovered gently on humming gravitic engines.

‘Here is where our paths diverge again, farseer,’ said the exarch as the embarkation ramp silently opened.

The seer nodded. ‘I am grateful for your aid, exarch.’

‘I think Ulthwé will not give you any further help.’

‘No,’ replied the seer, ‘I believe you are right.’

‘I wish you well, farseer.’

‘And I you,’ said the seer, as the exarch mounted the ramp and disappeared inside the ship. The rest of the seer’s warriors had already gone aboard, and he was left alone as the engine sound rose to a hum and the ship sped away to meet another, larger vessel, awaiting it in orbit.

The seer’s path took him elsewhere and was far from certain. He knew the first steps of it, at least.

He left the landing site on foot, and took a narrow path into the foothills that rose up to the north of the township in a horseshoe shape. Several kilometres out, far from prying eyes, he reached a stony promontory. Without his retinue, the seer needed to be careful but he had to see, to know if anything had changed.

Certain he was unwatched, he reached for the casket.

The wraithbone exterior felt warm to the touch, even through his armour, and as he breached the lid the power confined within struck the seer like a physical blow. He reeled, but held on. The encounter in the warehouse had drained him more than he realised, and he reasserted his psychic wards. Then he touched one of the shards and the pain redoubled…

The portal yawned, stretched obscenely beyond its natural proportions. It had become a gaping maw, ringed with teeth as the bleed of unmatter from the webway reshaped it. Some of the teeth were canine, others grinding molars. From the lurid glow within the portal, a host poured forth…

They came on diaphanous wings or brass-clad steeds, on claws, or stalk-legs, or hoofs, or slimed-feet. They came in hellish abundance, droning and baying and shrieking and cackling. The air grew thick and cloying as foetid putrefaction warred with noisome incense and the heavy stink of animal sweat and wet copper.

A vanguard of gold raised their spears in defiance of the horror, but it was as rocks trying to hold back the sea. They were swept aside, drowned utterly in the morass.

Others bravely took their place, protectively encircling the Throne and the wretched, emaciated figure upon it.

The daemon sea struck a bulwark then, riding up its invisible flank, unable to crest it, instead rolling ever upwards into the benighted Palace vaults. Hope flared momentarily as the weary defenders looked on at the rising tide that had struck their lord’s aegis and been halted.

The lesser host burned as they touched the aegis, reduced to ash and scattered back to whence they had manifested. A golden light radiated from the Throne, growing brighter with every creature it banished. A ragged cheer rang out from the defenders, a hollow echo within the aegis shell that quickly fell silent at the discordant fanfare of eighty-eight brass horns.

They heralded death, and the Last War.

Triumph turned to despair as the Eight trampled through the horde, whips thrashing, axes hewing. The aegis died in the flare of their hot anger, melted away like ice exposed to a furnace with nary a blow struck. It collapsed with a thunderclap that threw down the golden warriors behind it, and spurred the Eight to take leathern wing.

A bold last stand took moments to dismantle, and with one, world-sundering blow the Exalted of the Eight slew the one upon the Throne and split His seat in twain.

Even those without voice wailed in silent despair as the two halves of the Throne slid apart like offal before the butcher’s knife, its strength finally shattered.

The portal blew inwards, a plosive roar that tore a wound in the veil and left it gaping and raw.

The daemon sea swelled in flood, unceasing, unstoppable, consuming the last of the defenders.

As the two great war gods that stood sentry fell, the daemon sea reached the gate.

And the gate fell…

The seer staggered and almost dropped the casket. He held on to it through sheer effort of will and, weary, sealed the wraithbone lid shut. A pale, pearlescent stone embedded in the seer’s armour began to softly glow. He touched it with trembling fingers, stifling a gasp of pain.

+Lathsarial…+ he said, the communion like knife shards being rubbed into his skull.

+Diviner,+ a faint voice replied. +I felt your pain, Eldrad.+

+It is nothing compared to experiencing it first-hand, I can assure you.+

+I find your humour misplaced, farseer,+ Lathsarial chided. +I thought you were dead.+

+Only bruised.+

+Did you meet with success?+

The seer nodded, though he knew Lathsarial would be ignorant of the gesture.

+The first part is done. I have the lightning shard, albeit broken.+

+Broken?+ Lathsarial sounded anxious. +How?+

+A blade – not one of his, not the anathames, something else. It is spent, anyway, and this may yet better serve my ends. The skeins of fate are still occluded to me, though. Ripples touching ripples in the pool and causing confusion.+

+What can you see? Were we right? Is it him we must seek?+

+I see a time of ending still. I see the Great Enemy triumphant and all hope extinguished. But, yes, it is him we need. I do it alone, Lathsarial. I can feel your spirit still weakened by the Gorgon’s blow.+

+I am dying, Eldrad.+

+I know, we all are now. I am asking as swiftly as I can, but the path is yet unclear.+

+The aberrations?+

+A future mankind will never see. They jeopardise everything now. I plan to remove them.+

+All?+ Lathsarial sounded incredulous.

+Those who have a significant bearing. And their masters. I will hunt them.+

+You know I cannot help you now. And nor will Ulthwé. You are alone in this, Eldrad.+

The seer thought of the casket, of the eight slivers encased within.

+I won’t be alone, Lathsarial,+ he said. +I know exactly who to call upon.+

Eldrad Ulthran released the seerstone and Lathsarial faded from his mind. He then reached into his robes and pulled out a rib of wraithbone, beautifully arched and studded with three ruby-red gems. Carved lines in the pearl-white bone formed connective conduits, intersecting with runic markings running across the base.

Muttering an incantation, Eldrad saw the gems illuminate and awaken. He then drew a sigil in the air that lingered like corposant before driving the bone into the earth and stepping back.

It began as a swirling vortex no larger than the extent of his thumb, the arch cradling it until it grew to the size of a clenched fist and then to a skull and then a dome, until finally the dome became an orb, encapsulating a maelstrom of light and darkness.

Eldrad felt the stir of wind as it escaped from the portal, and heard the eldritch song of the webway from beyond its threshold.

Behind him, the township burned. Others burned with it, more than a dozen angry flickering beacons in the valley below. He could not save this world, but he might yet spare another and in so doing spare mankind.

He stepped into the portal and he, the orb and all trace of his presence vanished.

Click here to buy Old Earth.

To my wife-to-be, Stef, now Redgate, soon to be Kyme.
Even when we’re married, I still promise to bring you tea. With love.

A Black Library Publication

Published in Great Britain in 2017.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.
Internal illustrations by Tomas Duchek.

Old Earth © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Old Earth, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78572-761-0

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.