Contents

Cover

Blasphemy of the Fallen – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Blasphemy of the Fallen

Danie Ware

A hot wind scours red ceramite.

Laden with grit, it rattles fiercely against the Sisters’ armour, cramming the joints with dirt. Augusta’s visor is constantly clogging with the stuff, and every time she wipes it clear, the sand just comes straight back, piling inwards from the corners. Sister Superior Veradis, just ahead of her, is a blur of red and black and white, relentless in her prayers and her advance.

‘While we may walk worlds of darkness and terror, there you shall walk with us.’ The words are intoned, defiant in the teeth of the gale. ‘We shall know no doubts, no fears, in your name. Ave Imperator. Keep the formation close.’ She ends her prayer with command. ‘And do not stray near the edge. This wind is bitter and fierce, and our footing treacherous. To fall to your death – such a fate would be unsuitable for a Sister of Battle.’

Augusta does not need reminding of the drop. It chatters to her side like a maw, hungry, almost begging her to jump – a plunge into utter darkness, depths unseen and unimaginable. She tries not to look, but her boot skids on a pebble and she lurches towards the lip. Belly churning, she tightens her grip on her bolter and continues to force her way forwards, leaning hard into the gale.

May we walk with the Emperor, and carry His light into the very darkest reaches of the galaxy…

As far as they can, the squad walk tight to the rock face, towering and sand-blasted, striated with myriad shades of brown and orange and yellow. In places, it offers ancient, worn recesses that might once have been habs or chapels. Even here, some halfway down, the huge spiral bore is still five thousand feet across – the young Sister cannot so much as picture the size of the machine that made it. A harsh, scraping whirlwind fills the in-between space, abrasive and never-ceasing. And from the hidden depths crawl legends – tales of the Enemy, of great and nameless monsters, of plummeting deaths without number. Tales of xenos champions, and of phantoms that yet walk the ruins.

‘Vigilance, my Sisters,’ Veradis says. ‘We do not know what dwells here and we will complete our mission, in His name.’

Across the tight-beam, audible to only Augusta, Sister Lucienne mutters, ‘Ghosts.’

Such things are fanciful, unsuited to their disciplined descent, but Augusta can feel those ghosts, like eyes upon her back, like spectral fingers amid the clattering on her helm. Behind her, Lucienne walks close, with Emlyn and then Leona at the rear. The squad has no real need of Veradis’ orders; they walk the slowly descending spiral with a caution that verges almost on dread…

Almost.

He promised that He would grant us strength to face our enemies, the weapons of all who hate us…

For down here, somewhere at the very bottom of this colossal, inverted tower, waits a great and honoured relic. Forgotten by the Imperium for five thousand years and more, this is the last resting place of one of the most highly regarded crusaders of them all: Saint Myra of the Cobalt Blade, a Sister of Silence, she who walked at the forefront of Imperial consolidation. She had the ear of the Emperor Himself, or so the legend says, and this – this barren and wind-blasted rubble – is the place where she finally perished.

‘Hold.’

Her movements tight with discipline, Veradis drops to the cover of a tumbledown wall. Augusta and the squad do likewise, weapons covering the road.

About them, the wind rages and whines, scraping at the rock, scratching through the ruins. Headless remnants of buildings and towers glow oddly golden in the last light of Saadet’s second sun. The first has already set, passing beyond the lip of the bore, and strange, hazy shadows stretch long, thronging with secrets.

They can see nothing, hear nothing, other than the gale. The surrounding ruins’ edges are fantastical, carved by age and sand, but Augusta can make out some marks ahead of her, engraved in a half-fallen pillar. She does not know the language, but the symbol is clear enough – it’s a skull, with great lines of lightning that fan from its cranium. Daemon or psyker, it makes her skin crawl.

It’s not just the drop. Her every combat instinct is telling her there is something else in this place. Something waiting.

‘Nothing, Sister,’ Emlyn says. ‘The auspex is overwhelmed, it can read only the storm.’

‘Then we will use the gifts with which He blessed us,’ Veradis answers, utterly calm. ‘Our eyes and ears and wits.’

Again, Augusta wipes at her visor. The grit has got everywhere, embedding itself in the joints of her gauntlets. The movements of her fingers are awkward and stiff. But she has been with the squad three years now, and if these are the tests that He has set her, then she will not fail. She listens, murmuring the Litany of Divine Guidance.

‘Guide me, my Emperor. Show me to the Light.’

Only the wind, screaming as it shrills through ancient cracks – an incessant, posthumous hymnal from this spiral city’s corpse. Rumours scud, billowing in clouds past her vision. They bring suggestions, fragments of dreams. Saint Myra failed in her mission. She was slain by some ravening monster. She was slain in torment, and had lost her faith. It is her voice that the city now utters, the disgrace-cry of her heresy.

The young Sister shivers, feeling creeping tendrils of shame. He is with them, even here. And no foolish rumour is going to–

Something falls, a noise that is not the wind.

By the Throne!

Augusta prays, steadying and strong. His touch is upon them, reaching down like the rays of that second sun. He defends the galaxy, His awareness wide across the stars. Nothing happens that He does not see – no taint or presence of witch or daemon.

‘We are not alone in this place.’ Veradis’ tone is dangerous.

That noise. Is that… laughter?

Click here to buy Blasphemy of the Fallen.

A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2022 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Akim Kaliberda.

Blasphemy of the Fallen © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2022. Blasphemy of the Fallen, 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: 978-1-80407-099-4

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

the purchaser of a Black Library e-book product (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase a Black Library e-book (“e-book”). 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.

* 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.