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Dropsite Massacre – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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ONE

The ghosts kill each other. A boltgun rises, mouth wide. Explosive rounds dump into the chest of a warrior. He falls, hacking at his murderer with a chainsword. The teeth strike ceramite, chew deep. But the warrior still falls, and the bolt shells drill into him as he hits the ground. His murderer puts his foot on his victim’s gut, and fires down to make sure of his kill, then calmly changes magazines. Behind him an explosion punches up into the sky. The warrior freezes. His ghost image flickers. The blood speckling his armour is black in the hololight.

The projection stutters and refocuses.

And a new ghost rises. It raises its hand, opening fingers that are claws.

‘You remembrancers say you want to see war,’ says Horus Lupercal. ‘Well, here it is.’

Behind him dark rain falls from the void towards the curve of a world. Each drop of rain is a warhead. Darkness ripples out from each impact. Screams rise as the world dies.

Focusing lenses click as the holo-projection finishes its circuit of horror. Silence and darkness rule for a heartbeat. Then the projection engines buzz again and the ghosts begin to kill each other again.

‘Cease,’ says Rogal Dorn. The holo-image freezes.

Jenetia Krole, Knight-Commander of the Silent Sisterhood, steeples her fingers under her chin. She waits. Beyond these walls the Imperium is still proceeding, unknowing. That cannot last. When the doors open from this chamber, everything will change. But for now the walls and silence contain that future. This is the Forum Chamber of Bhab Bastion. It is buried deep in the granite of the old fortress that rises from the gleaming sprawl of the Imperial Palace on Terra. Both the tower and chamber are the product of wars that humanity have forgotten. Only its stones have remained. The chamber has no windows and only a single door. Its walls are unclad, metres thick. In times to come, it will become a War Chamber, a Council Bellum Principal, a place where every word will have a price in lives: thousands, millions, uncounted billions. It is about to cross from the dream of the past into the darkness of the future, Krole knows. They all know it. It is the same fate that waits for all of them now.

At the other compass points of the table sit three others: Constantin Valdor, captain-general of the Legio Custodes and chief bodyguard of the Emperor; Rogal Dorn, primarch of the VII Legion, the Praetorian of Terra; and Malcador, the Imperium’s foremost politician and the proxy for the Emperor. Krole knows them all. They cannot say the same of her; no one can.

Rogal Dorn stands. The light of the hololith recasts his armour in silver, his face as marble. Krole watches him, notes the fingers bunch reflexively and then release slowly. His strength is control. Moving or still, speaking or silent, he takes every action with deliberation.

Krole closes her eyes and rolls her neck. Her muscles ache. She has been waiting for this council to reach its close for some time.

‘A decision is needed,’ says Dorn.

Valdor shakes his head once. ‘This council is not to decide what will happen.’

‘The sun has risen and set twice since we began,’ says Dorn, leaning on the table. ‘We have argued and debated. If that was not to reach a decision then we have wasted time we do not have.’

Valdor meets the primarch’s gaze. He shows no emotion. ‘The decision was made a long time ago. This is about us coming to terms with the inevitable.’

Krole can read the subtle shift in Valdor’s tone that makes it clear that by ‘us’ he means Dorn. Dorn can too. She sees the primarch’s eyes gleam as he walls off anger.

‘Then there is nothing else to say – we move to strike Horus down with all the force and speed we can muster.’

Valdor frowns. He has selected the gesture, Krole knows. Everything the captain-general does is deliberate. Dorn’s face hardens. Theirs is not a relationship of brothers, or affection. They respect each other – how could they not? But they are two different beings: both elevated, both created by the same genius, but distant cousins at best. One is a master of conquest, with a mind of plans, vision, and execution. The other unconcerned with creation, or the ambition of building anything, unburdened by the need to cut his mark on the universe, focused entirely on what is and what must be done.

‘What is Horus’ reason for doing this?’

‘The cause of his rebellion–’ begins Dorn.

‘Insanity, alien influence, a flaw in the creation of your kind… I do not speak of Horus’ cause but his reason for his actions. And reason he has. Vast and near-depthless reason. Warmaster was not a title hung on him to gild his self-worth.’

‘You are concerned that we do not understand him well enough?’ asks Dorn.

‘No, I am worried that he understands us too well.’ Valdor pauses. ‘I am not a soldier.’ He is not being false or modest. Krole knows that despite his title, Valdor is closer to a prince than a general. ‘I guard. I protect. Reaction in the moment of threat is the basis of my craft. It is what concerns me above all.’

‘And Horus knows how we are going to react,’ says Dorn.

Valdor nods. ‘He would have known that he could not keep his rebellion secret. He would have planned for it.’ He levels his gun-barrel gaze at Dorn. ‘You would have.’ Valdor leans back, looking up at the holo-ghosts. ‘Horus has pulled the trigger, the bullet is in flight, and he knows us, or rather knows you and your kin. The instincts built into you are his instincts. He knows that we are going to leap, and how.’

‘You think there is an alternative?’ asks Dorn.

‘No, but I think we should ask again if there is.’

‘To what end?’ asks Dorn.

‘Because to pause before reacting is sometimes the most important action we can take.’

‘Rogal is right,’ says Malcador.

Krole looks at him. They all look at him. The old man sits straight-backed in his chair. The staff in his hand is the only mark of his office and authority. There is fatigue in his face, tiredness beyond that of age or time. Perhaps it is because Krole’s presence and the null generators securing the chamber dampen his connection to the warp. Or maybe it is just that he is a man who was old before he was anything else.

‘He is right, old friend,’ he says to Valdor. ‘Though your caution is well founded, and your counsel well taken.’

Malcador runs a liver-spotted hand across his hair. Can the others see how frail he is? Krole wonders. Malcador shakes his head, and when he speaks his voice is low, his gaze distant. For a moment Krole wonders if he is talking entirely to them or to someone else.

‘There is no precedent for this. Not in the castigation of Magnus, the censure of Lorgar, or the treacheries of old. We ride on dark seas without stars or compass…’ He looks up, eyes fixing on Krole. Most struggle to look at her directly, but not Malcador. ‘You have been quiet, commander,’ he says.

That really should not surprise you, she signs.

Malcador laughs, the sound brief and fast-fading. ‘What is your judgement in this?’

Does my Emperor’s Regent command me to give it?

Malcador nods once.

Krole pauses, fingers poised. The others are watching, waiting.

This matter was decided when the news arrived, she signs. The order could have been given hours ago. There is no choice, whether Horus has anticipated our response or not. What you are all struggling with is not action but acceptance – acceptance of the fact that Horus is a traitor and that we are going to have to kill him. Him and many more. You all believe that we have more agency than we do. Reaction, action, both are the wrong understanding of what is happening.

‘And the correct understanding would be?’ asks Dorn.

No one has control of what is happening now. Not us. Not Horus. She pauses, looks at Malcador. This is one of the longest series of signed communications she has given in a long time. A storm has its grip on us. We should not think that pulling the rudder can change the direction of the tide.

Malcador nods. ‘Thank you,’ he says.

You are welcome.

Valdor smiles briefly. Dorn’s face is stone.

‘The Emperor is grateful for all of your counsel, and for all that will be asked of you in the days to come,’ says Malcador, then gives a tired smile. ‘And thank you, my friends, from an old man who should know better than to need such comfort – thank you.’

Malcador stands. They all rise. He holds the eagle-topped staff up, and when his voice comes it is not that of an old man but of a Regent.

‘Horus and his allies shall be confronted with all the force of the Imperium. All of it. Now. Before this gyre of his treachery widens. He is cast out of the countenance of the Emperor, as are all who stand with him or aid him.’ He brings the staff down on the stone floor. ‘Send word that this is the Emperor’s will and judgement. Let it be done.’

It is warm on the bridge that links Bhab Bastion to the landing platform. Armina Fel, senior astropath in the service of Rogal Dorn, pauses halfway across and leans on a pillar. She draws a breath. The wind smells of dust and chems, and heat, and cooking smoke – the scent of Terra settling from day into night. She cannot see with her eyes, but in her mind she can see tiny echoes of the billions of lives that fill the Imperial Palace. There are motes of pain, flecks of joy, sparks of mundane anger. All of them are so simple, so free of the weight of the universe that turns around them. She would like to stay here and watch. She would like that more than anything.

She senses the Praetorian approaching before he steps onto the bridge. He is a noon-sun burning at the edge of her mind’s eye. She stays where she is as he approaches.

‘Are you all right, mistress?’ asks Rogal Dorn.

‘No,’ she says. The truth coming from her lips surprises her. She winces and puts a hand to her head. She must control her thoughts. She must. ‘My apologies, lord.’

‘For what?’

For weakness, she wants to say, for wishing that somehow what was happening was a dream.

‘I will be ready,’ she says. ‘I just need to…’

He says nothing. She hears the stone balustrade beside her creak as the primarch leans on it.

‘There is no moving past this,’ he says finally, his voice low, calm, but edged with a sadness that makes her head jerk up. ‘It is not something that can be willed out of being or crushed by the mind.’

‘Have you given yourself this advice too, lord?’ she asks, bold, far too bold, crossing a line that even long service does not allow her to breach.

‘A fair point,’ he says.

‘Lord?’ comes Archamus’ voice from the landing pad at the other end of the bridge. There is a lander and gunship escort waiting there, engines spooling up. It is not for Dorn; it is for her. ‘Flight ready and standing by.’

She hears the purr of armour as Dorn straightens. She turns her blind eyes to him. His presence is like the glow of a furnace.

‘Do you wish another to perform this–’ he begins to say.

‘No,’ she replies, fast enough that she cuts off the last words of Dorn’s question. He waits. ‘No, lord,’ she continues, keeping her voice controlled. ‘You gave this task to me. It is mine by your will.’

‘My thanks, mistress,’ he says, and she hears him step away. She waits a second longer and then starts towards the waiting lander. Archamus is beside her. He will guard her all the way to the City of Sight.

She takes three steps, then stops.

‘My lord,’ she calls back to Dorn. She senses him stop and look back at her ‘The message I will send, it cannot be encoded for a specific recipient. It must be heard by all who can hear and respond.’ She pauses. ‘They will hear it too, the…’ She forms the word with effort. ‘The traitors will hear it too.’

‘Good,’ says Dorn. ‘They should know retribution is coming for them.’

It is chill in the mountain tonight. Armina Fel suppresses a shiver as she sits. She takes a moment to adjust the fold of her robes.

‘Mistress?’ says a voice. It is one of the acolytes of the Mountain, one of the ones in the granite black who has trained for decades so that he can move amongst the astropaths and leave no trace. His thoughts are so simple and quiet that Armina Fel can barely hear them. No pollution of inner turmoil, no flashes of imagery in surface thought. Controlled but soft, like the fall of snow on snow. He is holding a cup of water out to her, she knows. She takes the cup, drinks a sip, and hands it back. The nameless acolyte withdraws, felt-soled feet barely whispering on the stone.

She is in the First Chorus Room of the City of Sight. Around her, sitting in tiers that climb the domed ceiling, are more of her kind. It will take a great deal of power to do what she will do tonight. She is going to send a message that will change the future. It is momentous. If she does nothing else in her life but succeed in this effort, it will be enough.

She does not want to do it.

She arranges her fingers into a ritual interlacing. She closes her eyes. The astrotelepathic engrams held still in her mind uncoil. Images and patterns of sensation bloom in her thoughts. She reaches through them, focusing, selecting the pieces of a dream that holds meaning in its smallest detail.

A wolf runs over snow under moonlight, swift and silent. Blood drools from its jaws, falling as rubies which glitter as they tumble. The hot heat of fire and the bitter taste of rage in the moment before the blow lands. Iron on the tongue. The coughing whimper of a dying child. The falling rubies break moonlight into hard geometries: nonagons, triangles, curves drawn to hermetic ratios. There are four vultures on a mountain, pulling ropes of innards from dead eagles. One of the vultures raises its head. Its eyes are silver crescents in black, and when it opens its bloody beak its call is that of the wolf running swift over snow with rubies of blood falling from its teeth…

The images roll and collide inside her. She weeps and screams in silence, shivers, and bites down on the feeling of talons in her guts and grief pulling tears from her eyes. This is the price of the astropath’s art. Not just that their creation steals one or many of their senses. Nor only that using their telepathic craft leaches life and strength from their bodies. No, Armina Fel does not simply compose the messages she sends; she feels them. Feels them down to the bone and soul.

She draws power to her dream as she works, pulling it from the minds of the eighty-one astropaths who circle the chamber. She gasps with pain, and they open their mouths and exhale as one. Frost glitters in their breath. Their heartbeats synchronise. Each of them is picking up a strand of thought and meaning from Armina Fel, like threads feeding into a loom. Worms of blue light arc up cables to her head. The light in the chamber is suddenly blinding. The astropaths are gasping, sucking air, each breath desperate, drowning even though they can breathe. Armina Fel is not breathing. Her blind eyes are closed and inside her skull the threads of the dream are winding, interlacing, fusing.

Armina Fel inhales with her soul.

Then she opens her blind eyes. And lets the dream free.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2025.
This eBook edition published in 2025 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 Lewis Jones.

Dropsite Massacre © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2025. Dropsite Massacre, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Siege of Terra, 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: 978-1-83609-366-4

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.

For Dave Tetlow and Christian Byrne.

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