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Lazarus: Enmity's Edge – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Chapter One

Lazarus stood on the stony shore, staring up at a sky that was the bruised blue of a corpse’s lips. Thin black lines marked the horizon, harbingers of what was coming. The vox-channels assigned to his Scouts were silent, but the Master of the Fifth saw those rising plumes of smoke and knew. The orks were approaching, their crude war machines racing across the scarred face of this toxic world, and they were heading straight for him and his gathered Dark Angels.

‘Good.’ The word echoed in his winged Spiritshield Helm, a comment for himself, not for cluttering up any of the vox-channels currently being used by the Fifth Company. Those channels were busy enough, filled with the deep voices of his brothers as they worked together, fortifying this wretched strand.

Lazarus turned, and the ceramite soles of his armour ground the brittle stone beneath his feet to dust, which slowly rose and hung in the air around him. This planet was called Husk, a good name for an ugly place. It was cold and barren, poisoned by ten thousand years of industrialisation. The sea beside them was the colour of diseased phlegm, its turgid surface barely rippled by the wind. The shore it pressed against was composed of crumbling slabs of dark red rock that made the ground look like a badly healed wound. Those stones rose abruptly into a ridge, a line of sharp-peaked mountains that were topped with dirty ochre snow. They looked like bloody gums, crowned with the splinters of shattered teeth.

This rough shore between those mountains and the sea was the fastest path to Varpitt, the hive of humanity that lay half buried in the desert beyond. Hundreds of millions of humans dug into Husk’s crust, eating, sleeping, breeding, dreaming. The beating heart of the Emperor’s vast galactic empire, and given the chance, the orks would rip them out of their city like a beast tearing marrow from a bone.

Lazarus and his Fifth were the hard denial of that destruction.

‘Command squad, report.’ Lazarus did not speak the words aloud. They were a subvocalised order that ran into the black carapace that had been implanted beneath his skin during his long, painful transformation into a Dark Angel. That sacred gene-seed organ was fused with his nervous system, its long strands of artificial neurons wrapped tight around his brain and spine, the interface between Lazarus and his power armour. It made the suit’s systems extensions of his body and his senses, and controlling the built-in vox-unit was simply a matter of wanting to do it, requiring no more effort than breathing.

The silent order opened a channel that connected Lazarus with the heart of the Fifth. Brother Demetrius, Interrogator-Chaplain, the man who had saved his life countless times, and his soul at least once. Brother Asbeel, the Apothecary responsible for his second life. Brothers Amad and Zakariah, his lieutenants. Brother Ephron, most senior of the Fifth’s Techmarines. And finally Ancient Jequn, the bearer of the Fifth’s standard and the only man in the company who might match Lazarus’ abilities with the blade.

‘Brother Ephron,’ he began, his words reaching the systems now linked through their armour’s vox. ‘Fleet status.’

‘Status depiction.’ The Space Marines in Lazarus’ command squad had picked up on his clipped speaking style long ago. Ephron, more comfortable with his machines than men, had no issue with staying succinct. The Techmarine transmitted a pict, a schematic of the space around Husk.

‘Battle-barge Unrelenting Fury has entered geosynchronous orbit directly above,’ Brother Ephron continued, labelling the orbital paths. ‘Strike cruiser Sword of Caliban shields her while strike cruiser Death of Mercy targets the remaining ork fighter craft that fled to the ring system of the third gas giant.’

Lazarus stared at the chart, satisfied with the placement of the bright dots, then wiped it out of his vision. ‘Brother Demetrius. Ancient Jequn. Brother Asbeel. Fifth status.’

‘Fortifications substantially complete,’ Jequn began. The Ancient also had no issue with keeping his reports short. He much preferred to inspire his brothers with what he did rather than what he said. ‘Reapers are dug in, as are the Rhinos. Overlapping fields of fire have been established with our Venerable Dreadnought brothers.’

‘Here is the placement of the company, Master Lazarus, with vehicle emplacements and squad deployment.’ It was Interrogator-Chaplain Demetrius’ duty to inspire the Fifth with both words and deed, and in battle his words were weapons as potent as the deadly crozius arcanum that he held. But for now, he limited them to emulate his commander’s succinctness, and like Ephron, he used a pict to convey his report. The detailed image came to life in Lazarus’ vision when he acknowledged it, a high view that showed the dug-in vehicles and the neatly carved lines of trenches and fortifications. The placement of each squad was noted with neat runes, and Lazarus looked it over, sketching in the fields of fire with his thoughts.

‘Good,’ Lazarus said. ‘But strengthen the left flank. The orks will race their vehicles up that cliffside to get over our lines.’

‘That would be suicide,’ Brother Zakariah said. The lieutenant was newly promoted, the youngest member of the command squad and the only Primaris Marine in the group – besides Lazarus, post-resurrection. Zakariah was a deadly fighter, but his experience was still limited in some ways, which included understanding the madness of xenos.

‘Agreed,’ Lazarus said. ‘But the orks will not see it that way. They will see a chance to fly over us, guns blazing, and the wreckage of their attempt will rain down on our lines. Shift Squad Invis fifty yards closer to that side, and order them to destroy anything that comes close.’

‘Understood, Master Lazarus,’ Demetrius said. ‘Brother Asbeel?’

‘Ammo and other supplies have been set back safely.’ The Apothecary didn’t have to struggle to keep his speech short. Asbeel was always precise, and he marked the locations where he’d cached the supplies with quick ticks made on the pict. Lazarus studied the map carefully, noting all the marks they had added and his change. It was all stone and static runes and lines, but in his head he could see the battle unfold as the orks approached, the fire zones, the choke points, the kill boxes. Everything was as it should be. His men knew their work.

And so should the ones that weren’t his. ‘Lieutenants. Scout reports?’

The Fifth had two Scout squads from the Tenth Company attached to it for this mission. Not Lazarus’ men, but Dark Angels nonetheless, and right now their work was at its most critical, so the Master of the Fifth had given one squad to each of his lieutenants for oversight, so they could closely coordinate the Scouts with the rest of the company.

Lieutenant Zakariah spoke first. ‘Squad Jotha has surveyed the valley behind us, and the second narrowing along the shore. They have mapped it in detail, including ice thickness and strength.’ The data appeared in Lazarus’ vision, a complicated topographical map of the land behind their current position. Numbers and paths indicated the places where heavy equipment like the Reaper tanks and Rhino troop transports could move without becoming bogged down or breaking through the ice covering the wide river that entered the sea behind them.

If something went wrong and they had to pull back, they could do it fast.

‘Have them establish possible positions on the second narrowing.’ With the Emperor’s favour, and enough ammunition, the ork force would break on the wall they had built here and bleed out into that ugly sea. But the strongest foundation of a plan was another plan, and Lazarus would work out as many possibilities as he could. If the Fifth did have to pull back from this killing field, that second choke point between the next ridge of mountains and the sea would be where they would go, to bleed the green xenos again.

‘Lieutenant Amad?’

‘Scout Squad Daral has pulled back.’ Brother Amad liked to talk, sometimes too much, but he had served under Lazarus for a long time and his words were clear and quick. ‘They are staying as close as possible, but the orks’ front is disarrayed, as always. They will lay eyes on the main column when they can.’

When they can. Lazarus looked again towards the horizon. The plumes of exhaust had grown thicker, and at their bases was the first hint of the dust cloud being thrown up by the orks’ war machines. That dust, filled with heavy metals and rad particles, was wreaking havoc with the auspex sensors mounted on the ships orbiting high overhead. The data they were sending Lazarus was almost useless, the ork army a shifting mass of magnetic anomalies and bright thermis colours. He needed the eyes of those Scouts.

He opened the reports Amad had sent him, the readings Squad Daral had gathered. The orks were racing across the plains on warbikes and battlewagons, but there were other things hidden in the swirling dust, things hinted at by the bright colours of the thermis images. Lazarus could only guess at what they might be. He needed more information.

You have what you have. Plan accordingly. Master Balthasar, the man who led the Fifth before Lazarus, had told him that, and it had become another litany that Lazarus would repeat to himself when he wanted more information. Which turned out to be every battle, because in the blood and the noise, there were always surprises.

‘Same battle plan,’ he told his command squad. ‘We stop the orks here, on this shore. Then we will bring our wrath down upon them.’

‘For the Lion!’ they called out in response. ‘For the Emperor! Forever!’

The cold wind whined around the hard angles of the Gladiator Reaper as Lazarus stood on top of the massive impulsor tank and watched the horizon. The approaching enemy was a storm now, a swirling dust cloud rolling over the stony red-brown wastes towards him and his men. That cloud was vast – the gravity on Husk was less than half standard, and the polluted grit kicked up by the ork army went high into the air and hung there like a poisonous fog bank. Still, Lazarus could pick out the occasional flashing reflection at the dust cloud’s base: the gleam of Husk’s dull orange sun shining off the spikes and armour of the smaller, faster vehicles that ran before the rest of the ork army.

They had no discipline. The orks’ strategy was numbers, their tactics ferocity. The fastest vehicles, the warbikes and the jouncing four-wheeled machines, would be in the lead, hoping to smash through whatever enemy appeared in front of them. The Fifth would have to shatter those outriders while waiting for the slower-moving bulk of the army to arrive.

When they did, the orks would pack themselves in tight, concentrating their strength into one heaving mass of blades and guns, all striking into the waiting Dark Angels. The green xenos horde would hit them like a tsunami, a bellowing torrent of muscle and rusted metal. It would be a vicious fight and the orks would bleed rivers as they pushed forward, but they would likely break through. The xenos had the vast weight of numbers to back their ferocity.

But Lazarus meant to change those numbers.

He looked up at the clear, ugly sky. Somewhere behind that bruised blue, the Unrelenting Fury waited, weapons ready. The ork army was spread out and half hidden behind a cloud of dust that frustrated the machine spirits of the battle-barge’s targeting systems. But the Dark Angels would gather the orks together and make them a perfect target, stopped before their lines. The Unrelenting Fury might not be able to use its most powerful weapons, not without obliterating the Fifth along with the orks, but it had many others. When Lazarus called for it, a double handful of hell would fall and there would be nothing left of the ork invaders but a vast crater of glass, just one more scar on Husk’s battered hide.

‘Master Lazarus,’ Brother Ephron called. ‘Brother Domitius on the vox. Urgent.’

Think of the daemon, and they are invoked, Lazarus thought. Domitius was commander of the Unrelenting Fury, which explained why his transmissions were coming in through Ephron’s more sophisticated vox. The cloud of pollution kicked up by the orks wasn’t any kinder to long-range vox transmissions. Lazarus could feel the channel that Ephron had opened for him and activated it with a thought, letting Domitius’ voice fill his ears.

‘Master Lazarus.’ The commander’s words snapped through the vox. ‘I am pulling the Unrelenting Fury out of orbit and preparing for a jump into the warp.’

‘Repeat,’ Lazarus said, his voice suddenly hard.

‘Unrelenting Fury is leaving geosynchronous orbit. Now. I have orders of highest priority, given by Supreme Grand Master Azrael himself. The Unrelenting Fury is needed, and so I go.’

It was needed. Here. The orks would be on them soon, and without the Unrelenting Fury and its weapons–

Lazarus cut through the angry spiral of his thoughts. They were slowing him down, and time was always an enemy. ‘My gratitude for your service to us, brother-commander. Go, and serve the sons of the Lion that need you most.’

‘Gratitude to you, Master Lazarus. May the Emperor guide your blade, and the Lion walk with you.’

‘And with you,’ Lazarus replied. The vox-channel went silent, and Lazarus stood on the scabrous shore, staring at the wall of dust rising before him. The orks were coming, and without the weapons from on high, he wasn’t sure he could stop them. Not like this.

Time was his enemy, but so was rage. Lazarus ran the Litany of Focus through his head, until his mind was clear, his hand on the hilt of Enmity’s Edge, the ancient power sword that hung from his hip. Thoughts spun through his head, plans replacing plans, and he turned his back on the growing storm and stared at the valley that stretched between the mountains, and the ice-covered river that rolled down its centre into the sea.

‘Command squad,’ he said, his voice clipped and calm. ‘The plan has changed.’

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2024.
This eBook edition published in 2024 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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

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