Contents

Cover

The Book of Martyrs – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Chapter One

The creature squealed as it died, talons raking the air.

Sister Ishani crushed it with her bare fist, grinding the insect into the wood until it ceased squirming. Another roe-grub. Why did the brothers find it so difficult to keep the Throne-damned things from escaping? The size of a child’s hand, the roe-grub had upset a pot of ink over her transcripts, typing a trail of black dots as it sought to escape. Again, Ishani hammered the lifeless insect. The grub had been ripe for harvesting, possibly mislaid on its way to the processing cells. A burst of protein-rich eggs spotted the ink, tiny moons in a sea of black.

Snatching a rag, she wiped the flattened insect from the butt of her fist, then mopped at the ruined pages, the fruit of two hours’ labour. She cursed and scrunched the whole mess into a ball, then hurled it at the door of her chamber. She grabbed the stool and hurled that too, hearing it shatter.

Ishani gripped the lectern, puffs of breath misting the air. She wrapped her coarse robes more tightly around her, her bare feet freezing upon the flagstones. She ached, her body starved of sleep as yet another ponderous boom rattled the ceiling. Candles quivered, huddled in their alcoves. Her black power armour shivered on its rack, a headless apparition hovering before the altar.

Only one more week and we’ll have cleared the meteor field, Ishani thought. Only one more hour until morning vigil. She cursed again.

Her transcripts had been ruined, but she still had her notes. She gathered them from the shelf overlooking the lectern. The pages were lined with tangled script, scribbled by candlelight upon waking.

The last dream had been over a month ago, though its clarity remained undiminished. This time the skies were charcoal smoke. The horizon seethed with enemies, Heretic Astartes this time, a howling tide of blood and brass. Again, Battle Sisters stood beside her, expressions blazing with rapture, voices soaring in prayer. The foe met them, as it always did, and glorious combat ensued. This time it concluded with the sweep of an axe and Ishani awoke from death yet again, panting, sweating, ecstatic.

Visions were commonplace among the Sisterhood, whether beheld awake or in dreams, but Ishani had never heard her Sisters speak of any as detailed as these. When making her notes she found she could recall unfamiliar names, entire hymns, locations of battles that could only have been fought aeons ago. The station’s libraries were dominated by agricultural grimoires and harvest catalogs. She had no way of confirming whether the names in her transcripts correlated to any in recorded history.

She whispered to herself. ‘With my hand in yours shall I cross the bridgeless gulf.’ She thumbed the string of beads at her waist until she found her rosarius, the metal icon of the Orders Hospitaller. ‘To every sign of your guidance, though mine eyes be plucked from mine head, I shall be not blind.’

Ishani took her almanac from the plinth where she had set it between two candles. She had hoped to spend the half-hour before noctis precatio stitching this morning’s transcription into the spine. Soon the book would be ready for submission to Ophelia VII, to the Librarium Apostolicae of the Convent Sanctorum.

Her almanac was small enough to be carried snug in a pouch on her belt, but one day the Orders Dialogi would decant its testaments into huge tomes, decorate each page with gilded marginalia. Copies would find their way onto worlds throughout the galaxy, to battlefields far from here. Such renown would surely earn the author a new commission, a place where her talents could be utilised to the best possible benefit of the Sisterhood.

Ishani enjoyed the smoothness of the worn leather cover as she turned to the title page.

The Visions of Sister Ishani.

She traced the whirl that formed the base of the ‘I’. It looped and knitted with the tail of the ‘n’, then descended to form a mantel of elaborate swirls upon which her name was presented.

She heard the drone of an approaching grav-motor and slipped the book into the pocket of her robe. She was stashing her notes in a satchel when Borvo fluttered through a dripping access pipe in the wall. The cyber-cherub carried a wooden tray filled with clinking phials retrieved from the formularium. He set the tray before her chirurgeon’s tools with a bow, the little motor in his back whirring beneath dove wings.

‘Borvo, attendos,’ she said.

The cherub turned, lenses gleaming in a plump little face.

‘You have returned early. Did you deliver this week’s formulae to the praedium masters as I ordered?’

His bald patch peeked through honey-blond curls as he nodded, then drifted about the chamber in search of his next task.

‘Borvo, I do not need you every blasted second of every day. I shall have that homing sensor of yours removed. When the tech-priests next sanctify your cogitator, I shall ask them to– Leave that be!’

Ishani shooed him as he made to tidy away the crumpled parchments on the floor.

‘Borvo, desist.’

The cherub obediently retreated to a dark corner of the ceiling. He gripped the crushed remains of the roe-grub in a tiny fist, his motor chugging as he examined it.

‘Borvo, put that down! Somnos, you little bastard! Somnos, now!’

The mashed insect plopped into her water jug as Borvo descended into the alcove above her bed. He folded his little wings, chubby arms crossed in the sign of the aquila as he nestled, becoming a waxen gargoyle. Seeing him there, she reflected that he would almost certainly have been present when the previous Hospitaller had died. Ishani pictured the cherub in his alcove above the bed, attending his former mistress with swirls of incense, hymns crackling from the voxmitter in his belly as he watched the wrinkled lips of Ishani’s predecessor finally breathe their last.

She grabbed her copy of the Compendious Imperialis Dyetry of Health and flung it at the cherub. The book bounced off his skull with an iron clang.

Another meteor resounded miles above, then another. Dust hissed from the ceiling.

Sister Hamanda burst into her room.

‘You are needed, Sister Hospitaller. It’s Father Tollund.’

She found him lying at the edge of the metal platform, facing one of a thousand lanes of gnarlfruit bushes that disappeared into the hissing fog. He looked as though he were napping, his dark robes covering him like a blanket. Ishani knelt beside him, her white tabard soaking red. She glanced up at the command spire beside them. It must have been some forty feet tall, high enough to survey the outlying acreage. Its black needle pricked the glaring lumens that lined the ceiling of the praedium. A window near its apex stood open.

Father Tollund’s face was pale but untouched, preserving the haunted expression Ishani had seen when he met with her two weeks ago, when he had asked for something to help him sleep. His eyes were now even more bruised and imploring; his wheezing breath sucked shadows into his cheeks.

‘Father, can you hear me?’ she said.

Borvo hovered at the monk’s head, tiny fingers forming the wings of the aquila. An ancient voxcording warbled a benediction from his belly-grille, an appeal for life intoned by a voice long dead. Father Tollund groaned and shifted, a sound like broken crockery rasping under his robes. Borvo handed his mistress a small pair of shears.

‘Be upon us, God-Emperor.’ She spoke quickly, slicing open the dark, wet robes. ‘Clothe thy faithful servant in your light.’

Father Tollund stared, hardly blinking as his sunken eyes filled with moisture.

‘Did none of you think to turn off the irrigation?’ Crouched beside Ishani, bolter slung, Sister Hamanda barked at the young monks who had found their Praedium Master during their morning round. They were a skittish group of novice agricolae who had retreated the moment the Sisters had arrived. ‘Would you have your master drown before we can save him?’

They clutched at one another’s robes, eyes wide, babbling prayers, quailing like children. Father Tollund had treated his charges with a kindness far greater than many of the Praedium Masters. One of the boys eventually gathered his skirts and hurried away, his sandals clapping as he stumbled up the metal stairs inside the command spire.

Ishani squinted through the heavy lens that replaced her left eye, a souvenir from the Battle of Grudgehaven. She felt the augmetics whir in her socket, transforming Father Tollund into a molten blue phantom, then pulsing red filigree, then a ghostly wreckage of bones. Augur reticules swarmed like bees, stacking columns of data-screed.

<Primary augur scan detects no sign of malefic corruption.>

<Primary imbalance – sanguine.>

<Calculating horoscopic prognosis…>

She peeled back a section of Father Tollund’s robe. The old man’s chest was a heaving patchwork of purple, black and yellow, his ribs bowed high on one side, tight as knuckles.

<Eight venous ruptures detected, as follows…>

Ishani bowed her head, touching the fleur-de-lys upon her bandeau, sending a thought command to the chirurgeon’s tools mounted upon her backpack.

‘Machine-spirit, ever faithful, be about thy sacred work. Help me deliver him from death.’ She added, ‘From a death most undeserved.’

The chirurgeon’s arm extended over her shoulder, a metal spider-leg, soundless, joints wetted with sacred oils. The hypo-awl at its tip retracted, replaced with a blade and stitching clamp. A gust of scalding steam purified them both before the arm went to work on Father Tollund’s crooked left arm.

The novices were approaching, muddy sandals slapping the steps onto the metal platform. She could hear them whispering, prayers punctuated with gasps of horror. She realised the irrigation had finally been shut off, the mist settling to reveal roaming servitors and distant iron walls.

‘Reverend Mother, will he live?’ The boy had returned from the command spire.

Hamanda snarled. ‘Boy, that is for your God-Emperor to decide.’

‘Have faith, brother,’ Ishani said.

The boy nodded with a shiver, then knelt in prayer.

<Multiple fragmentum detected in fibulus, tibea, patellae, femura, transervic column, pelvic arch–>

She dismissed the diagnosis with a thought. Father Tollund’s legs were bags of matchwood, along with most of the hip and spine. Nothing the tech-priests could not remedy, if she could but stabilise him and get him in stasis.

<Splenetic rupture detected.>

She had already seen it. The bruising below the ribs was almost black.

<Haemorrhage ongoing.>

Her lens whirred. A splintered rib had punctured the spleen, tearing it like a wineskin. Completely unsalvageable.

<Organ unsalvageable.>

Ishani whisked the robes aside, revealing the glistening nest of bones that had once been Father Tollund’s legs. One of the boys wilted, dropping to the floor with a clang.

‘Did he hit his head?’ Ishani called without looking up. She was pressing the sensor-pad of her armoured thumb along the artery inside Father Tollund’s swollen thigh, detecting where the pulse was strongest. An intravenous route to the spleen would reduce the risk of infection.

‘The Sister Hospitaller asked you a question, boy,’ Hamanda roared.

‘No,’ came a voice.

‘Then raise his legs,’ called Ishani. ‘Keep him lying down. He’ll awake in a minute.’

Her chirurgeon’s tools had already sealed several ruptured arteries, stitching them with synth-thread barely visible to the naked eye. The metal arm switched tools, now feeding a line of pseudo-vitae into a mended vein. Father Tollund was shaking his head, murmuring and sobbing.

Ishani squeezed a sensor in her gauntlet, releasing a sickle the size of a tooth from a groove in her armoured finger. Its blade gleamed with blessed counterseptic.

<Splenetic exsanguination must be properly stemmed.>

A thick dark jet sprang from her incision, spattering her ebony breastplate. She heard another boy drop to the ground. Another hiss of steam purified a wire-thin servo-tube released from the vambrace medicae she wore on her forearm. Father Tollund shifted weakly as she fed the tube into his spitting artery, stemming the wound with a wad of anointed cloth. Manipulating the tiny dials near the vambrace’s screen, she guided the tube up through the vein, towards the stricken organ.

<Patient calculated to expire in less than two minutes.>

‘Hamanda, keep him still. He’s trying to crawl away.’

The Sister Superior leered as she pressed down on Father Tollund’s shoulders. Her canines gleamed through the scar that mangled one side of her mouth. ‘Is our company not to his liking?’

Ishani bit her lip, voicing a silent prayer. God-Emperor grant me patience to endure the Sisters of the Valorous Heart and their morbid sense of humour.

‘He probably doesn’t even know he’s injured,’ Ishani said. ‘He has taken some form of anodyne. Most likely before he jumped.’

‘What kind of anodyne?’

<Blood analysis complete – anodyne distilled from ‘bile berry’ liquor, combined with proteins from station-unique fungi. Designation – ‘nephenthine’.>

‘The same anodyne you confiscated from those novices in Praedium Sigma last week,’ Ishani said. ‘The quartermaster told me another six bottles have gone missing from the formularium.’

Hamanda hissed. ‘When will these mewling weaklings listen?’ She considered Father Tollund, then yelled over her shoulder at the novices. ‘Look well, brothers! For here lies the cost of a night of untroubled dreams!’

‘Had he taken a full dose it would have killed him outright.’ Ishani teased the dials, watching the screen on her wrist. ‘It’s slowing his heart, but I must deal with this first.’

Broken fingers seized Ishani’s wrist.

‘Stop!’ Father Tollund gasped, shaking with effort. ‘Please!’ His eyes searched Ishani’s, just as they had done weeks ago, begging her to end his torment.

Hamanda snatched his hand away, but the old man thrashed, straining the wire in his thigh.

‘No more,’ he cried. ‘No more!’ The novices wailed as their master’s voice rose to an anguished shriek. Ishani felt something like a blade twist in her belly.

<Heart approaching seizure-level.>

‘Borvo, coercere!’

Servo-muscles bulged in the cherub’s stout arms as he helped Hamanda pin Father Tollund. Ishani thumbed the tube’s release switch. The screen on her vambrace displayed a wad of membrane expelled into the splenic artery.

<Embolisation deployed.>

<Splenetic haemorrhage plugged.>

<Tube retracting.>

<Praise be to the never-failing light of the Throne.>

Father Tollund convulsed, gagged.

<Heart seizure. Blockage in artery majoris.>

His heartbeat had fallen to a quiver, his brain in spasm as it fought for oxygen. Ishani thumbed another sensor in her gauntlet. A small hypo-awl sprang from her vambrace.

<Unexpected fibrillation caused by presence of anodyne.>

She thrust the needle between broken ribs. The canister hissed, sinking a yellow elixir into the artery beside Father Tollund’s floundering heart. The old man stiffened, teeth grinding like broken slate as his tortured muscles were set ablaze by the tonic, a cordial of vigour anointed with a single tear from a weeping statue of Saint Lucia.

‘God-Emperor,’ cried Ishani. ‘Medicae of man’s salvation, deliver this man – this goodly, faithful soul – so that he may continue to enact thy word!’

<Heart rate stabilised.>

<Cranial scan detects blood-starvation and presence of anodyne in southern lobe.>

<Brain activity now below levels required for Imperial service.>

<Commend body to stasis pending re-assignment by resident Mechanicus.>

<Blessed be the servo-skull.>

<For death shall curb not the cherished duties of the faithful.>

Ishani dismissed the data-screed and clasped Father Tollund’s head, pressing his brow to her own. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

‘Twice now have I failed you, father.’ She struggled to steady her words. ‘Peace is the very least I owe you.’

There came a gasp from the novice kneeling behind her as she drew her bolt pistol. She choked as she whispered the litany.

‘Faithful adept, I commend thy soul to the eternal light of the Throne.’

The angry bark of a single explosive round rolled across the furrows, echoing about the praedium walls.

‘Cease your whimpering!’ Hamanda grabbed the novice cowering behind Ishani and shoved him towards the others. ‘The departure of your master’s soul demands not childish tears but solemn reflection.’

Ishani replaced Father Tollund’s robes, covering the sprayed head as best she could. Something clinked in his pocket and she retrieved two unbroken phials of black liquid; one of them was half empty, missing a mouthful.

Two weeks ago, she had been on her way to the station’s hospice when Father Tollund caught her arm. He begged her for something to ease his nightmares, to banish the dread that haunted his waking hours. She knew him to be a man of sensitive mien, fond of his many ailments. She had told him she would send him a phial of reeksmilk, a sweet-tasting placebo she had administered once or twice while stationed on the hive world of Grudgehaven. She had told him she was needed at the hospice, urgently. That much was true, but she also needed to clear her duties before cycle’s end if she were to attend to her almanac that night.

The book nestled in its pouch at the small of her back. She could sense its weight through her power armour and felt a sudden, awful impulse to cast the book into the mud.

She should have arranged with Father Tollund an hour’s confession, a guided prayer. She could have recommended any number of litanies to help ease his mind.

‘Louder, brothers!’ Hamanda was prowling before the novices. She had them on their knees, hands clasped in terrified prayer. ‘The God-Emperor has found your faith wanting, your devotions insufficient!’

Ishani sighed and got to her feet. ‘Borvo, take these.’

The cherub took the bottles of nephenthine and secured them in a pouch at his belt.

‘Fetch the servitors from the wagon. See Father Tollund safely on board. Recite for him the Litany of Rest. All of it! Use songwind powder for the incense. Intellego?’

Borvo bobbed and departed.

‘Your appointed guardians are the Adepta Sororitas!’ Hamanda continued her address with all the ferocity of a canoness on training duty. ‘The Sisters of Battle, most devout of the God-Emperor’s servants! Clearly, brothers, you are ignorant of the honour bestowed upon you. Why else would you so consistently ignore our counsel?’

‘Sister Superior?’ Ishani said.

Hamanda continued. ‘You tell us the meteor impacts topside prevent you from sleeping, that in your waking hours you are prey to some nameless dread that not even prayer can dispel. And we explain that nothing shall addle the mind more thoroughly than lack of slumber. We explain that this moon shall clear the meteor field within the next six cycles, after which all who reside within this burrow shall sleep soundly once more. In the meantime, we promise you that prayer shall dispel all distractions, that devotion alone shall ease you into sleep, and instead you seek heretical routes to oblivion.’

A couple of the novices exchanged fearful glances.

‘It is clear that you require greater discipline.’

‘Sister?’

One of the novices squealed as Hamanda seized him by the robe and flung him to the ground. ‘If prayer cannot focus your attention, then perhaps an example of punishment shall suffice!’

The boy clasped his hands, gabbling an entreaty as Hamanda advanced.

‘Brothers of the Sanctus Laurea,’ cried Ishani. ‘The Sister Superior is quite right. And I believe there is nothing in the liturgy of your order more conducive to focus than your Invocation of Rebirth? Verse four hundred and twelve, I believe. “Through ritual toil shall He rise from the Throne restored.”’

The novices fumbled for the verse, stifling sobs. Hamanda stood aside, her breathing tight as Ishani ushered the whimpering boy back to his brothers. Their murmured prayers continued as the Sisters retreated discreetly.

Hamanda growled. ‘Sister, this station is not a nursery.’

‘Nor is it a battlefield,’ Ishani said. ‘Attempts to bully them shall only make matters worse.’

‘You believe cosseting them is the answer? Ishani, fear continues to fester among them. They are too weak to resist!’

‘Exactly,’ Ishani said. ‘They are not Sororitas. They are not warriors. They are agri-cultists who know nothing of life but toil and prayer. They cannot be expected to possess our discipline, Hamanda. What they need is our care.’

Ishani looked away, distracted. ‘And our full attention.’

The servitors were lifting Father Tollund’s dripping remains onto a wooden stretcher. Hamanda leaned close.

‘Things will only get worse now they know our communications are down.’

‘What do you mean? How long have they known that?’

‘I heard a couple of the masters talking, Benedict and Aylmere. They know our astropaths have been silent for weeks. They know we’ve been unable to reach our neighbours on the other moons. I told them I’d see them both executed for heresy if they spoke of it again.’

‘Any word from the Basilica? Any idea when we’ll regain contact with the other stations?’

Hamanda smirked. ‘You’ve seen our astropaths. The two of them are older than Holy Terra. Barely fit for purpose at the best of times. I’m told their every attempt to relay a message still puts them in agony.’

‘Then perhaps Palatine Gundred needs to give them time to rest properly. Pushing them to make another attempt before their delirium has passed will only make matters worse. I’ve told her this several times now. She is stubborn beyond reason.’

Hamanda stifled a grin. ‘Conviction is often mistaken for stubbornness,’ she said. ‘Especially by the impatient, Sister Hospitaller.’ Hamanda’s mirth was infuriating. She continued. ‘It is as the Palatine has said all along. Storms in the warp. Such gaps in communication are only to be expected when we’re this close to the Rift.’

The servitors were loading Father Tollund onto the wagon. Borvo hovered above them, casting little handfuls of sacred dust.

Hamanda spoke again. ‘Yet in the meantime, more blood shall be spilled before this moon clears the meteor field. Yesterday, did you not tend two agricolae who had been at each other’s throats? Those men were on the brink of murder, driven mad by lack of sleep.’

The novices still sang, eyes tight shut, huddled together, rows of grey shrubs framing them like the bars of a prison.

‘Ishani,’ Hamanda said. ‘Without their master to guide them, these boys shall fall prey to their own fears. Unless we make them fear us more. It is a greater kindness, Sister. Rumour shall grow to panic, then heresy shall ensue, unless we bring them to heel. Now!’

Another boom rolled about the hall like thunder. Girders groaned like slumbering gods. Sobs faltered the brothers’ prayers.

‘Ishani? Sister?’

‘Brothers,’ Ishani said, approaching. ‘The God-Emperor understands your fears. He too grieves for your loss.’

She knelt before them. A dozen haunted faces stared back at her, unnerved by her closeness.

‘Yet He would have you know that fear unrestrained is a malady most grievous. How then do we curb this infection?’

She lifted the chin of the only boy who looked away. His eyes were sacks of pain, crystal grey beneath a glaze of tears.

‘Duty,’ she told him. ‘Duty is proof against all horrors.’

The eyes of the others had become intent. She saw sparks of expectancy, desperation, relief, blessed relief, every face brightening with hope. It was a look with which she had grown familiar when tending the sickbeds of Grudgehaven, looks of pain lifting in realisation that deliverance was at hand. Ishani recalled her pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Argent Shroud, where she received the armour of her first assigned Order.

Among your Sisters, you are especially blessed, Hospitaller, the canoness preceptor had told her. For wherever you may go in this galaxy, you bring with you the healing light of the God-Emperor Himself. There is nowhere in His Imperium where you will not be welcomed, not a soul under His creed who will not be glad to see you. It had not been long ago that she had been reassigned, and traded Argent Shroud silver for Valorous Heart black. It was not all she felt she had lost.

‘Each of us shall perform their appointed task,’ Ishani told the brothers. ‘Their Throne-given duty, through death, disease and distraction, brother and Battle Sister shall stand firm.’

The boys were nodding, even smiling.

‘Our duties make martyrs of us all.’ Ishani laughed. ‘Would you not agree, Sister of the Valorous Heart?’

Hamanda’s eyes tightened as she nodded. ‘Aye, Reverend Mother.’

Ishani continued. ‘For in duty we protect not only ourselves, brothers.’ She recalled a cherished line from her almanac, recorded from a dream she had had of a Repentia Superior leading a doomed charge.

‘Our faith is not only in Him, but in each other. Only in duty is the miraculous made possible.’

The boy with grey eyes looked away.

‘You are troubled still, brother?’

‘Reverend Mother, I grieve for our master’s soul. For will he not be damned for making an end of himself, for deserting his duty? Has he not willingly sinned against the Throne?’

Ishani made the sign of the aquila as she spoke. ‘In the name of the Throne, do I absolve him.’ She rose. ‘Your master was not the one at fault.’

Hamanda watched Ishani as she departed for the wagon.

More thunder followed.

Click here to buy The Book of Martyrs.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2021.
This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Mauro Belfiore.

The Book of Martyrs © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2021. The Book of Martyrs, 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: 978-1-80026-597-4

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.