Contents

Cover

Iron Resolve – Extract

1000

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

0700

Guardsman Myer was bleeding again.

He had only closed his eyes for a second. Somehow, however, his mind had drifted elsewhere. He came back to his senses with a jolt. The Chimera in which he was travelling was a relic, its suspension shot. It was only through the press of bodies around him that he had not been juddered right out of his seat.

A dark stain spread across his brand new uniform jacket.

‘I told you to keep pressure on that dressing.’ Scornful eyes blazed at the young trooper from the shadow of a cap peak.

‘Yes, sergeant. Sorry, sergeant.’ Myer stiffened his posture. He pressed his hand into the sticky wetness of his right side. Pain lanced through his body. He clenched his teeth to keep a groan from escaping. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

He tried not to think about how much blood he had lost.

He wanted to ask how far they had to go, but that would have looked weak. What was the point in knowing, anyway? They would reach help before Myer died or else they wouldn’t. His fate was in the Emperor’s hands.

The trooper beside him doubled up in another coughing fit. The sergeant, leaning across the narrow space between them, pushed him upright and ordered him to breathe. The trooper complied, sweat drenching his face. A crimson rash extruded tendrils from beneath his stiff blue collar, cradling his chin. Skin flaked from his cheeks. He couldn’t last much longer either. Not if the infection had reached his lungs.

Myer’s instinct was to shrink away from him, but this would have meant leaning closer to one of the others. Of the four other patients jammed into the crew compartment, three were victims of the same blight.

His heart soared hopefully as the Chimera juddered to a reluctant halt. A moment later, the roar of its engine ceased. Silence rushed into Guardsman Myer’s ears. The sergeant unlatched the rear hatch and shouldered it open.

Myer flinched as bright light flooded the gloomy compartment. Having only left Mordian – the world of his birth, the World of Eternal Night – four weeks ago, he was quite unused to sunlight. It had been night when he had clambered aboard the Chimera. Now, blinding rays streamed through the tangled structures of an alien forest.

‘Those who can walk, disembark,’ the sergeant ordered. Myer didn’t think that included him, but he didn’t dare say so. It was easier to try.

His wound flared white-hot again as he levered himself up. He steadied himself with his free hand against the Chimera’s chassis. He saw blurred figures through the blinding light, hurrying to meet him. Just three or four steps, he told himself.

He managed two – two faltering, agonising, hunched-over steps – then tumbled forwards out of the back of the vehicle.

He watched the forest floor rushing up towards him. Then a pair of strong arms caught him. He didn’t know whose arms they were. His hand fell away from the wound between his ribs, letting blood flow freely from it. It no longer mattered. The stale, recycled air of the troop compartment had been replaced by a warm, fresh, floral-scented breeze. He felt his mind drifting from his body again, and this time he was relieved to let it go.

He had made it, he thought. He was at the command post, far from the carnage of battle.

He was finally safe.

1000

Guardsman Myer was going to die.

The news hadn’t sunk in yet, hence his outward reaction to it was suitably measured. He sat to attention, his arms like ramrods by his sides. He felt self-conscious in his flimsy white surgical gown. It rubbed against the knot of stitches and synth-skin holding his side together.

Lieutenant Veimer sat across a cluttered desk from him. ‘Anything to say?’

‘No, sir,’ said Myer. ‘I mean, no, sir, I didn’t. I wouldn’t.’

Veimer didn’t look at him. He was tapping at a data-slate, head down, presenting Myer with a view of his balding crown. He had glanced at the young trooper only once, when inviting him to enter the small room and sit down.

Myer feared he should have insisted on standing. He felt like he had walked into a trap. He had let his defences down, feeling grateful to the man whose surgical skills had saved his life. Veimer wasn’t just a medic, however. He was an officer in the Mordian Iron Guard. He had rescued Myer only to condemn him anew with the flick of a stylus.

‘Name?’ Veimer rumbled.

‘Lucius Myer,’ said Myer, and he reeled off his serial number.

Veimer nodded. The information matched that on his slate. He confirmed Myer’s date of birth and age, which was sixteen. ‘First tour of duty?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

‘We set up camp in the Dirkr Forest, sir. We were told that an ork ship crashed on Kallash some years ago. A feudal world. The survivors were dealt with by the local militia, but–’

‘I am aware of the mission specs, Guardsman. Tell me what happened last night.’

‘Last night, my squad was clearing a section of the forest. We hadn’t seen a xenos in over two days. We thought they must have fled from this–’

‘Don’t tell me what you thought.’

‘No, sir. They had set an ambush for us. It was Guardsman Steinvorst who saw them. Or heard them or smelled them, I’m not sure which. If he hadn’t… He shouted a warning. Sergeant Ven Coers voxed for assistance, but the orks were already–’

‘Feral orks,’ the lieutenant corrected him.

Myer took a breath. He willed himself to remain composed, dispassionate. ‘They burst out of the trees ahead of us. They were wielding clubs, and a few had axes too. They came at us, howling and slobbering for our blood. We shot some of them – I think two or three of them – down, but the rest…’

‘According to the report, your squad acquitted itself with honour.’

‘Yes, sir. We lost one Guardsman. But we held off the orks – the feral orks – until reinforcements reached us. We purged this world of twenty xenos, at least.’

‘You must have been afraid. A fresh young recruit like you.’

‘Not for a moment, sir,’ insisted Myer.

‘Concerned for your life?’

‘I did my duty,’ he restated, with as much conviction as he could muster.

‘Sustaining a near-fatal wound in the process.’

‘Apparently so, sir.’

Lieutenant Veimer met Myer’s eyes for the first time. The officer’s own eyes were red-rimmed, slightly distended. He was obviously tired, although he showed no other sign of it. ‘Of course, you reported this wound to your sergeant at once?’

‘I was unaware of it, sir. At the time. The xenos swarmed us, clawing, biting, slashing, spitting. I was trying to keep them at bay with my bayonet. I don’t remember feeling the knife blow to my side. It was only later that I discovered the bleeding.’

‘Knife blow?’ Veimer raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘I assumed so, sir. It looked like a knife wound to me. The blade, or whatever it was, had sliced through my uniform.’

‘And yet, you didn’t start to bleed until later?’

‘Only minutes later,’ said Myer. ‘I didn’t realise how serious it was, to begin with. I thought I could staunch the bleeding myself. I emptied the synth-skin canister in my medi-pack.’

Veimer made more notes on the data-slate. An agonising minute passed before he spoke again. Myer’s side ached and his throat felt dry. He clenched his fists against his hips, his fingernails cutting his palms. He had to keep himself from shaking.

‘I have been a field medicae for almost twenty years,’ said Veimer, finally. ‘I have dealt with numerous troopers – young men, usually – who thought they could escape military service by injuring themselves.’

‘Surely no man of Mordian would ever–?’

Veimer spoke over Myer without raising his voice. ‘The preferred method used to be to shoot oneself in the foot. Since that became a cliché, cases like your own are more common. You were cut by a xenos blade, I don’t doubt it. I have learned to tell the difference, however, between a wound sustained in battle, with the full strength of a feral ork behind it, and one crafted rather more slowly and carefully in the victim’s own tent.’

Myer found he couldn’t speak.

‘My report will state that, in my expert opinion, your wound was self-inflicted,’ the officer pronounced. ‘You will have an opportunity to defend yourself in front of the Commissariat. For your sake, I hope you are more convincing than you have been today. Dismissed.’

Myer pushed himself to his feet. His head swam. For a moment, he thought he might pass out again. He wanted to argue, to shout, to plead, to lodge a desperate appeal against his fate. Such behaviour would have been indecorous, however, inviting only further scorn; anyway, he still had no words.

‘Do you need an orderly to help you back to your bed?’ asked Veimer, without looking up.

‘No. Thank you, sir. I can manage,’ Myer croaked.

The young trooper made his way out of the office, determined to hold himself tall.

Only after the door had closed behind him did Veimer set aside his data-slate and allow himself a disappointed sigh.

As if he weren’t busy enough, he thought. It had never been intended that his understaffed, makeshift facility in the forest should cope with a full-scale plague. How much time had he wasted saving Myer’s life this morning – and for what? So that he could be hauled before a military court and almost certainly convicted and shot?

He had done his duty, he told himself. It was not for him to question. Still, he found his thoughts veering towards a familiar gloomy place. How many young soldiers like Myer had he tended to in his time? How many of them were alive now?

Those who passed through Veimer’s hands were, in many ways, the luckier ones. They had stared death in the face and, one way or another, had survived. He had patched them up and sent them back out to fight. Most, he had never seen or heard of again. How many could have been so lucky a second time?

It might have been better for all concerned had he left Myer to bleed to death.

It would surely have been kinder.

The Dirkr Forest command post squatted in a circular clearing, created by the fire of the Emperor’s holy infantry. The largest of its four prefabricated huts had been pressed into service as a medicae ward. Fourteen beds lined its long walls, each of them occupied. As many patients again lay on the floor on mattresses, squeezed between the beds.

Myer had to walk past all of them. His trembling legs would have made this difficult enough. He was quickly aware, however, that every head in the room – save for those of the very sickest patients – had turned to greet his return. Conversations had abruptly ceased.

They knew. Somehow, every one of them knew. Myer tried to pretend he hadn’t noticed. He kept his chin up. He stared ahead as if blinkered, avoiding their accusing eyes. The walk to his corner bed felt like a five-mile march.

He lowered himself onto it, at last, with relief. He kept his back firmly to the rest of the room. His mind raced, composing the report he intended to write to set the record straight. He had felt so tongue-tied in front of Veimer, and after all, he had just had major surgery. He could do much better, say so much more, in writing.

Mordian officers loved a good report. When they read his report, they would know he couldn’t possibly be guilty of the charges levelled against him.

‘Coward!’

Myer thought – or hoped – he had imagined the voice. It had been kept low, a surreptitious hiss. A spit. The background drone of the command post’s generatorum outside, behind a thin plasteel wall, had almost drowned it out. He couldn’t mistake the spiteful murmur of agreement that rippled along the ward, however.

‘It isn’t true,’ he blurted out, without looking around. ‘I didn’t do it.’

He hugged his pillow, burying his head in it. He was deeply, overwhelmingly tired. His body demanded sleep after its series of ordeals, but his mind was keeping it awake.

The room was gloomy, windows shuttered against Kallash’s harsh daylight. Myer welcomed the darkness. He focused on the steady hum of the generatorum, letting it fill his head. Everything would look better after sleep, he told himself. He would write that report and show everyone how wrong they were about him.

He just needed not to think for a while.

Patterns danced behind his eyelids. He left the ward, with its counterseptic tang, behind him. Instead of going somewhere better, however, he found himself back in the forest. The patterns resolved into the shapes of trees and bushes. Myer was back in his pristine uniform, back with his squad… his old squad, of which he had been a member for so short a time. Back in the darkest moment of his young life.

He knew what was about to happen, but he was helpless to stop it. It was Guardsman Steinvorst – solid, reliable Steinvorst, twice Myer’s age but the colleague to whom he felt closest, the one who had been kindest to him – who shouted the warning.

A jolt of terror, as strong as it had been the first time, shocked him awake.

Myer had cried out – only in the dream, or in reality too? He couldn’t tell. He prayed he hadn’t disgraced himself. He lay still until his breathing slowed to its normal pace. Only then did he dare close his eyes again, but it was no use. As soon as he did, the dreadful image returned: a snarling, savage monster, thundering towards him.

Click here to buy Iron Resolve.

A Black Library Publication

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

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Paul Dainton.

Iron Resolve © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. Iron Resolve, 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: 978-1-78999-488-9

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.