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Angron: Slave of Nuceria – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Prologue

THREE DAYS

‘O, that our fathers would applaud our love
To seal our happiness with their consents!’

– attributed to the Nameless Thane of Old Albia

Across a lifetime that spanned more than a century, there existed three days that, to Iocare’s mind, were fundamental in the shaping of his destiny. The first had come on Terra, when he was a child on the cusp of becoming a man. Such a fate would be denied forever to him that day, as he was taken from the world he knew, and placed within that of the Legion.

The second day had come many years later, after extensive conditioning, surgeries and genetic restructuring had moulded Iocare into something that was no longer human, but rather the weapon humanity would wield to conquer the stars. Decades of fitful, sleepless nights, the persistent whispers of those around him that only he could hear, the unexplained pain that wracked him and set him apart from his Legion kin; all was made clear when he was inducted into the Librarius of the XII Legion, the War Hounds, where he was trained to fashion what he had called a curse into a gift, and then a weapon.

And then there was the third day, the last of the days that would close off who Iocare had been and change him into what destiny would have him become. As he walked through the decks of the Hound’s Tooth, feeling the minds of thousands of beings around him like the lapping tides of a churning sea, the Librarian’s brutal, slab-like features were creased in an honest smile.

That third day was today.

Iocare’s brethren of the 18th Company’s Librarius awaited him as he arrived at the Hound’s Tooth’s principal apothecarion. Their faces were stoic, almost cold as their eyes followed his approach. Yet they did not need their faces or their words to converse amongst their order. Iocare reached out to them, brushing his mind softly against each of theirs. He felt confusion in some, anger in others. And in some, though they would never admit it, Iocare sensed the barest admiration, tightly guarded within the hardened layers of their mental wards.

Iocare knew their concerns. He understood them. He knew why so many viewed him as foolish, even suicidal. Every XII Legion warrior, no longer War Hounds but now the Eaters of Worlds, who had undergone the procedure had died. No one, Librarian or otherwise, had taken the Butcher’s Nails into the meat of his mind and lived.

But he would.

The coalition of the Legion’s finest Apothecaries and Techmarines had laboured without rest since the discovery of their primarch to replicate the neural implants present in their lord as he had demanded. Design after design, prototype after proto-type, all had failed. Even the intervention of Vel-Kheredar, the prodigious magos of sacred Mars, had yet to produce a viable replication of the Nails. Until, it was hoped, now.

A scattering of Iocare’s Legion kin had gathered to observe the procedure, arranging themselves in loose rows around the wide banks of armourglass outside the apothecarion. Their expressions were guarded, or hidden behind the marble-white faceplates of their helms. Iocare could sense the curiosity within his brothers, the expectation bleeding off their auras like a haze.

The company’s centurion, however, was nowhere to be found. Mago’s absence was felt by all those present, a stark indication of his dissent against the transformation that Iocare was poised to undertake. Where the commander of the 18th saw recklessness and fatalistic folly, Iocare saw destiny. He saw the fulfilment of what their primarch demanded, that his sons be remade in his image. Iocare would become the bridge between the Legion and their lord, the father that refused to look at them as they were now. Especially those of the Librarius.

Iocare would make their father see his Legion. He would make Angron see him.

Reclined upon the cold surface of the surgical slab, Iocare watched with calm as a team of medicae servitors removed his armour and bound his limbs and torso with thick adamantium restraints. Their caution was a product of experience, as well as necessity. Despite the procedure having undergone countless iterations of design and implementation, the effect upon the subject was never the same, apart from death. None within the Legion knew exactly what would happen when this newest iteration of the Butcher’s Nails was implanted.

Orchestrating the lobotomised slaves were representatives from both the Legion’s Techmarines and Apothecaries. Gahlan Surlak, who had taken the creation of a viable reproduction of the Nails as his own personal crusade, was absent, watching through the eyes of the servitors as he toiled alongside Vel-Kheredar on the newly rechristened Conqueror.

Working in silence, the servitors quickly sheared Iocare’s head to the scalp and marked points of incision across his skull, all under the careful supervision of the Librarian’s specialised kin. His restraints were checked, and then checked again. A heavy brace was installed on either side of his head and neck to lock it into place. With the preliminary actions completed, the Apothecary Vaion came to Iocare’s side, the chamber’s harsh, sterile light gleaming from his ivory plate.

‘I am able to administer a sedative,’ said Vaion, raising his narthecium gauntlet and its array of injectors, ‘to render you unconscious, or apply a nerve block to the affected areas. It will not impact the implantation.’

‘No.’ Iocare met his brother’s gaze as he refused him.

‘There will be a considerable amount of pain,’ said Vaion.

Iocare turned his eyes back to the ceiling. He answered in Nagrakali, the guttural tongue quickly supplanting Low Gothic as those born of Terra became increasingly outnumbered in the Legion’s ranks. ‘Pain is the purpose of the Butcher’s Nails. Pain is what made the primarch who he is. If the Legion is to succeed in forging unity with him, then it will be forged through pain.’

Vaion gave a slow nod of acquiescence. ‘As you wish, Codicier.’ The Apothecary looked to Korit, and stepped aside as the Techmarine took his place, the specialised tools of his back-mounted servo arms thrumming as they came online. Iocare brushed against the thoughts of his kindred. Caution warred with expectation across Vaion’s aura, where a clinical calm permeated Korit’s.

‘Are you prepared?’ asked Korit, his voice harshened by the grille of his snarling crimson helm.

Iocare closed his eyes, took a slow breath, and then opened them again. ‘Bring forth the hammer, my brother.’

Vaion affixed his helm in place with a soft snap of magnetising seals. He turned to one of the tables surrounding the surgical slab, passing over the trays of neatly arranged instruments before stopping before an armoured box slightly larger than a legionary’s head. The Apothecary’s fingers tapped against the runes of the crate’s access panel, applying gene-code samples and disabling the array of security failsafes ensuring the contents arrived upon the Hound’s Tooth without any chance of being tampered with. As the final lock cycled open, Vaion turned to Korit and waited.

A shadow fell across Iocare’s face as the Techmarine loomed over him, a giant of deep-red armour framed by buzzing mechanical limbs and twitching mechadendrites. The restrained aura coating Korit’s mind crystallised into absolute focus in Iocare’s second sight as he made ready for the first incision. A beam of emerald light leapt out from the cluster of lenses on the left side of Korit’s helm, perfectly aligning the movement of his foremost servo arms to the path of the targeting laser as it settled over the Librarian’s brow.

‘We shall now proceed,’ rumbled Korit. ‘Mark the time.’

‘Acknowledged,’ replied Vaion. The sound of a surgical saw spinning to life eclipsed all sound within the apothecarion.

The sharp buzzing whine of the saw tickled at Iocare’s inner ear. As it made contact with his flesh, the sound grew lower, softer, wetter. His left eye twitched as a fine mist of his own blood dappled his face. The air was filled with the hot metallic richness of transhuman vitality. The initial sting of the cut came and went, overtaken by a migraine grind as the mono-molecular cutting blade sliced its way through genhanced muscle and ate into the World Eater’s reinforced skull.

Previous prototypes of the Nails had run the gamut of entry points for affixing the implants to the subject’s brain. Substantial progress had been made with a model that had attached itself at the temples, but it had been discarded with the others after once more it had ended in failure, and more dead or blood-maddened World Eaters had been cast into the incinerators of the 203rd Expeditionary Fleet.

The iteration being tested on Iocare was a wholly new concept, a fan-like curve of dark iron and snaking sub-dermal connectors designed to be clamped over the front of the brow like a crown. Vaion lifted the device from its container, bringing it beside the table as Korit withdrew his saw-tipped servo arm, dripping with dark Legiones Astartes blood.

‘Principal incision complete,’ said Korit flatly. ‘Prepare for installation.’

Vaion leaned over Iocare, his hands working in an ordered dance. The flesh around the incision was pulled clear and pinned back, with any excess blood suctioned away by a tool in the Apothecary’s gauntlet. Time was a factor, due to a Space Marine’s rapid healing ability, and so they worked swiftly. Vaion reached for a table beside him, turning back to the slab with a glittering steel spreader in each hand. He pressed the instruments into the wide fissure carved into the Codicier’s skull, locking them into place before ratcheting them to slowly stretch the opening wider. Transhuman bone creaked as it was pulled apart, exposing the glistening pinkish-grey mass of Iocare’s brain.

The pain escalated, a white-hot bloom starting at his brow and cascading down his entire being. A legionary’s transhuman physique was designed to curb such trauma, dulling even the most catastrophic of injuries. Even without the systems of his power armour, Iocare’s body could secrete chemical pain suppressants and combat narcotics directly into his bloodstream, numbing his nerves and keeping the warrior’s focus on the fight.

Iocare prevented such reactions from occurring, with a will born of an inhuman discipline and control over his body. The Librarian took in all of the agonised sensation, allowing it to slash across his nervous system in jagged waves. He relished it as a kind of purifying torment, one that would push him from one state of being into the next.

‘Installation site prepared to optimum specifications,’ murmured Vaion as he took up the Nails in his hands. ‘Proceed with first phase of device installation.’

Korit extended a mechadendrite from his helm towards the Butcher’s Nails, its trio of probes slotting into the device’s connection ports with a series of sharp clicks. The implant seemed to come alive then, with tiny lights winking in silent sequence along its length, and the sub-dermal connectors dangling from it snapping taut under the Techmarine’s control.

Vaion lowered the Nails over Iocare’s skull, just shy of touching it. Korit lifted his left hand, the wrist rotating and the fingers making short, sharp movements in the air. The connectors moved in concert to his haptic control, each needle-tipped cable settling over an exact spot of Iocare’s brain before plunging down into the meat.

With the human brain bereft of pain receptors, the Librarian was unable to feel the connectors as they wound through his grey matter, yet still their effects were made known. Tics and spasms played across Iocare’s face. His limbs trembled and twitched in a disjointed dance, involuntarily straining against the bands holding him to the slab. His senses came and went in quick, split-second snatches of blindness, numbness and bizarre smells he had never before experienced.

Slowly, carefully, Vaion let the connectors pull the Butcher’s Nails further down as they wove deeper, until finally the device slotted into the cranial incision with a wet snick. He removed the spreaders, allowing Iocare’s skull to grip the implants as he hurriedly unpinned the flesh and sutured it around them. A chill pebbled Iocare with gooseflesh as the Apothecary sprayed his swollen brow with a frigid counterseptic spray.

Korit’s hand grew still as each of the connectors arrived at its destination, fully embedded within Iocare’s brain. With a miniscule cock of his head, he shunted operational power of the Nails from his armour to its own internal source, and after performing a battery of diagnostics in the time it took an eye to blink, he severed connection to his mechadendrite and withdrew it back to his helm.

Long minutes stretched by in silence, save for the chattering of medicae cogitators and the ever present rumble of the ship’s engines. The joints in Iocare’s fingers crackled as his hands tightened into fists, the World Eater seeking to assert control over his still-convulsing body with a legionary’s discipline.

Iocare felt his mind changing, realigning to achieve fulfilment of union with the Lord of the Red Sands. Something new was within him, less a presence than a blunt, base sensation that coated his being and seeped into his very core. A sudden warmth filled him, starting from within his skull and radiating out through every part of him. It grew hotter, and hotter, until every vein stung with it. It set his teeth on edge, and he bit down as he ground them together.

His eyes, threaded with straining blood vessels, flitted between Vaion and Korit in a rapidly sharpening glare. He drank in the uncertainty permeating their auras, stopping when the pain it sparked behind his eyes grew too much to bear. He didn’t need his gift to see how they were looking at him. The doubt – the fear – in their eyes. Fear of him. As if he were a bomb and they did not know whether or not he would explode.

Watching him.

Staring at him.

Judging him.

–tick–

It was so easy for his brothers to lord over him, while he lay there with his limbs bound. So confident in their superiority. So arrogant! Where was their courage when the time to test the Nails had come? Where were they when Angron had called, and none save Iocare had answered?

–tick-tick–

Iocare’s jaw worked in silence, no longer in pain, but in anger. An unfathomable rage lashed through his veins, beyond any he had ever known. This was a new fury, black and red-tinged and endless like a ragged maw rising out of the deepest depths of him.

–tick-tick-tick–

Was this the anger his father felt? The towering rage that had razed whole worlds and spilled oceans of hot, vital blood? Iocare was forced to abandon the thought, as the buzzing in his mind bleached it of all meaning and importance. Nothing mattered, nothing but the restraints holding him down, and what he would do once he tore loose from them.

–tick-tick-tick-tick-tick–

His lungs clenched in spasm, unable to take in air. The shadows on the walls of the apothecarion lengthened and twisted, reflecting the psychic flame rushing over his flesh.

Vaion and Korit were moving now. Iocare knew they were shouting, that the sterile white and silence was now stained red by alarms, but he couldn’t hear any of it. All sound was gone save the primal roar of his blood and the insistent–

–tick-tick-tick–

–tick-tick-tick–

–TICK-TICK-TICK–

Iocare couldn’t hear himself screaming. Such was the ruination bursting out from inside him that he didn’t realise he was doing it, and he could not have stopped even if he had wanted to. He didn’t stop screaming when ropes of bleeding fire tore from his flesh, unspooling and slashing uncontrollably around the apothecarion as the bands of adamantium restraining him came apart at a molecular level.

Korit was dead before Iocare realised he had touched him. Vaion lasted a heart’s beat longer, torn apart into separate mounds of burning ash so quickly he hadn’t even had a chance to cry out in pain. Iocare watched his brothers disappear, dying without any blood to coat the walls or his hands or his teeth and he screamed so loudly the muscles in his throat tore.

Iocare brought his hands to his face but they weren’t flesh any more. They were fire rippling around bones, blazing in sickly multicolour. His scream became part of them as the conflagration grew, burning brighter and brighter, destroying everything around him, until he ceased to be.

Click here to buy Angron: Slave of Nuceria.

To Laurie Goulding, without whose insight, advice and depth of knowledge this book would not have been possible.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Mikhail Savier.

Angron: Slave of Nuceria © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. Angron: Slave of Nuceria, 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.
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ISBN: 978-1-78030-786-2

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