Table of Contents

Cover

A Song for the Lost – Extract

Legal

eBook license

A Song for the Lost

Robbie MacNiven

It was the forty-third Catechism of Blessed Absolution that broke Ulix. The boy had made it through the Rites of Imperial Truth, the Intonations of Saint Ozbadier and the First and Second Orders of Sanctity, but by then the words of the Catechism had slipped from the youth’s mind. He stuttered and faltered, panic only further obscuring his memory of the dusty High Gothic syllables. A few seconds of hesitation were all that Bishop Eziah needed.

‘If you can’t even speak the God-Emperor’s praises, how can you possibly sing them?’ he thundered, a fleck of the old man’s spittle hitting the choir novitiate’s cheek. The boy cringed, and the bishop’s expression grew even darker.

‘If there’s one thing He hates more than a lack of faith, boy, it’s a lack of courage. Hold out your hand.’

Instinct kept Ulix frozen. Eziah snatched his arm and pinned it to the cold slab of the lectern between them, his face a rictus of manic zealotry.

‘We must believe in no one but the God-Emperor, He on Earth, Father of Mankind.’ Like a cruel joke, the words came back to Ulix as the Bishop raised his switch reed, but the hunched old man wasn’t listening. The switch came down on Ulix’s bared forearm with a hideous crack, and the boy’s yell echoed back from the vaulted ceiling of the scriptorium.

‘Your rotten influence has spread to Matthias,’ Eziah spat before landing a second blow. ‘He’s gone mute. I won’t allow your canker to spread to the rest of my novitiates. Pain will earn you salvation.’

Ulix didn’t reply. He screwed his eyes tightly shut, all of his attention focussed on trying not to cry. His defiance only drove the bishop to greater fury. By the time he was done, Ulix’s pale arm was a latticework of raw welts.

‘I’m cutting your vittles for the rest of the week,’ Eziah hissed, panting with exertion. ‘You will return at three bells tomorrow, and you will try again, and if you can’t offer up veneration befitting this holy basilica, I will break either you or this reed. Whichever snaps first. Now get out.’

Ulix fled. His vision was a blur of angry tears, and the lofty corridors of the Basilica of Himaeus the Justicar echoed with his muffled sobs. His dorm was dark by the time he reached it, the rest of the boys already tucked into their sleeping alcoves. Only his own lumen stick still burned, its flickering light barely strong enough to pick out the craggy, bare stone walls and flagstones of the novitiates’ quarters.

Click here to buy A Song for the Lost.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

A Song for the Lost © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. A Song for the Lost, 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: 978-1-78572-025-3

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.