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Legacies of Betrayal – Extract

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An extract from Riven
by John French

‘It is not the dead I pity but the living. Those left at the threshold of ending are the ones who bear the burden of death. They are the ones who have to learn to live, knowing that nothing can be as it was.’

– from Lament for the Phoenix,
penned by the Primarch Fulgrim in 831.M30

‘When do we free him?’

The voice was the first that Crius had heard since he had woken in the prison of his armour. It was low and deep, like the sea surging against a cliff. Static cracked and popped as the vox-system came to life in his helmet. The darkness remained, pressing against his eyes.

‘When we reach the edge of the sun’s light, Boreas,’ said a second voice, further away but still close.

‘Is he awake in there?’ asked the first voice, the one called Boreas.

‘Perhaps.’

Small jolts of electricity ran up Crius’s spine. Power was slowly seeping into his armour systems – enough for him to feel, but not enough for him to move. That was the point, of course. In this state his armour was as complete a prison as any cell, its fibre bundles paralysed, its servos locked.

This is not Khangba Marwu, he thought, and the months of silence in Terra’s great gaol rose and drained away as the realisation hardened. I am no longer chained beneath the mountain. His armour was vibrating against his skin, steady and slow, like an electric pulse.

I am on a ship, he realised.

He had spent most of his life on ships, journeying between wars across the scattered stars, and the sensations of a vessel under power were as familiar to him as the beat of his own hearts. At least they had been, before he was returned to Terra, before Crius, Lord of the Kadoran and veteran of nearly two centuries of war, had become an Iron Hands legionary of the Crusader Host.

Before he had been forgotten.

Light touched his eyes. Ice-blue numerals ran across his sight. He tried to focus on the scrolling data but found that he could not. The connections between his flesh and augmetics itched; the scrambler that the Custodians had used to subdue him had shorted out half of the connections.

He began to inventory the details of his situation. He had no weaponry beyond his own body. Not normally the greatest of problems, but he had no control of his armour, and it was likely to be power starved. His augmetics were functioning far below optimal parameters. Even if he could get control of his armour, his combat effectiveness was fifty-nine per cent of optimal. That, of course, was based on the presumption that there were no other bindings holding him in place.

Not forgetting that you were too old for the warfront before you were sent to Terra, said a voice at the back of his thoughts. Not forgetting that factor.

Then there was the question of what enemy he would face. He recalled the voices he had heard, rolling their pitch and tones through a mental analysis. No auditory markers of the Custodians, but the vocal range was outside a human norm – deeper, textured by muscles and structures that mortals lacked. The conclusion formed in his mind with the smallest possibility of error: Space Marines.

He had new gaolers then, but why?

Irrelevant. That they were Space Marines was enough to skew the combat outcome. Even if I could move I would likely still lose, he thought.

Hatred rose through him then – hatred for those who had betrayed the Emperor, hatred for those who had imprisoned him, but most of all hatred for his own weakness. He should not have become weak enough that his only use was as a figurehead; he should not have allowed himself to be imprisoned; he should have been with the rest of his clan and Legion as they struck down the traitor Horus. He should…

He shut down the chain of thoughts, containing them and allowing their heat to flood him but not dull his logic.

‘The truth of iron,’ he muttered to himself, ‘guide me.’

Something scratched on the outside of his helm. He froze, muscles tensed and poised. Gas hissed around his neck. Seals clunked open and his helmet lifted away. His eyes dimmed as light poured into them, and his sight fizzed briefly before resolving to clarity.

A broad face looked back at him. Tanned and scar-knotted skin covered flat and muscle-thickened features; it was the face of one of the Emperor’s finest, the face of a Space Marine. A close-cropped strip of hair ran down the centre of the warrior’s skull, and a pair of dark eyes watched Crius without blinking. Crius stared back, his indigo lenses set into a face divided between scarred flesh and chromed ceramite.

He sat in a throne at the centre of a chamber of tiered stone. Chains wound across his body, linking to manacles at his wrists and fixed to cleats in the floor. The walls of the chamber were black, smooth and flecked with crystal that sparkled in the light of dimmed glow-globes. Banners hung from the walls, their gold, black and crimson thread tattered by bullet holes and charred by fire. The domed ceiling above was a mosaic of white and black tiles forming the emblem of a clenched fist.

The Space Marine who had removed Crius’s helm wore yellow armour with a black-on-white cruciform device on his shoulder. There was a stillness about him that reminded Crius of the memorial statues that guarded the graves of the honoured dead.

Imperial Fists, he thought. The praetorians of Terra. Of course.

The Imperial Fists legionary stepped back, and Crius saw a second figure standing further back, watching in silence, his armour swathed in a white tabard crossed with black, his hand resting upon the pommel of a sheathed sword. He looked into the figure’s hard, cold sapphire eyes. Crius’s gaze did not waver.

‘His armour, my lord?’ said the Imperial Fists legionary standing over him. ‘Should I activate it?’

Boreas, Crius thought. That was what the other voice had called him.

‘I would not do that,’ he said and looked up. Boreas met his gaze, the hint of a frown forming on his brow. ‘And if I were you, I would also not release these chains.’

‘What?’

‘Because if you do,’ Crius continued, calmly, ‘I will kill you both.’

Boreas glanced at his silent comrade, then back to Crius. ‘Do you–’

‘Yes, I know who he is,’ growled Crius.

‘I would not wish to believe you a traitor, Iron Hand,’ said the second Imperial Fists legionary.

‘Treachery…’ Crius said the word slowly. ‘Tell me, if you had been buried beneath a mountain, chained beside those with the blood of true traitors, then what thoughts would you have nursed in the dark? What would you wish on those who bound you there?’ The focusing rings of his eyes twitched. ‘If Sigismund, First Captain of the Imperial Fists, were sitting here in my place, what would he be thinking?’

Sigismund narrowed his eyes. ‘I would be considering how I might best serve the Imperium.’

‘Truly?’ sneered Crius.

Sigismund carried on as if he had not heard. ‘Now that we have passed beyond the bounds of the Solar System, I am charged by Lord Dorn to give you his orders.’

Crius shook his head slowly, not breaking Sigismund’s gaze. ‘My sword is my primarch’s to order, and the Emperor’s to command. You are neither, and nor is Rogal Dorn.’

Boreas surged forward, anger cracking his stony features. His hand was already bunched into a fist. ‘You dare–’

Fast, registered Crius. Very fast.

But Sigismund moved faster and put a hand on Boreas’s shoulder.

‘Peace, Boreas,’ said the Lord of Templars. Boreas glanced at his commander, and something passed between them in that glance.

Crius opened his mouth to speak. Sigismund spoke first.

‘Ferrus Manus is dead.’

Crius heard the words. He felt his brain process them. He felt their meaning spread through him. He felt… nothing.

The instant stretched out, and still there was nothing. Not the feeling of his armour against his skin, not the ache of his shorted augmetics, not the pulse of blood in his limbs. There was just the rush of silence and a sense of falling, as though a hole had opened up in the universe and swallowed him. He was falling, and there was just emptiness above and below.

Ferrus Manus is dead. The words rang in his mind.

Somewhere in his memory, a grim face turned to look at him, unsmiling.

‘And who are you?’

‘I am Crius. First Vexilla of the Tenth Legion,’ he had swallowed in a dry throat. ‘I am your son.’

‘So you are,’ Ferrus Manus had said.

‘How?’ he heard himself say.

Sigismund was watching him as he had before, with not a flicker of emotion in his eyes. ‘He fell in the counter-strike on Isstvan.’

‘When?’

‘It’s unclear,’ said Boreas.

‘When?’ asked Crius, feeling his lips pull back from his teeth.

‘It has been two hundred and fourteen days since we heard the news,’ said Sigismund.

Crius processed the number. Half of his mind dealt with it as cold data, while the other half howled. Muscles tensed across his body. His armour creaked and the chains rattled.

All this time, they knew. They knew, and yet they said nothing until now.

He breathed out, fighting down the fire that crawled through him, feeling a measure of control returning. The Imperial Fists just watched him.

Ferrus Manus is dead. No. No, it was impossible.

They knew, and yet they said nothing.

Crius’s thoughts tumbled through the widening void of his mind even as his mouth formed words. ‘What of the rest of the counter-strike?’

‘We do not know, not for certain.’ Sigismund blinked and for the first time broke Crius’s gaze. ‘The Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors and Word Bearers went to Horus. Vulkan is missing. Corax has made himself known to us, and he reports that the Raven Guard are gone, save for the few thousand he brought with him.’

Crius gave a small nod. A few moments before, this new information would have shocked him. Now his numb mind simply absorbed it and processed it. A high-pitched buzz rang in his ears. He swallowed but found that his mouth was paper dry.

Ferrus Manus is dead…

There will be a way for him to return. He is the Gorgon, he is iron, he cannot die.

‘My Legion?

‘We do not know. Some may have survived the massacre. Some may not have reached the Isstvan System. There may be many of them still out there.’ Sigismund paused and moved a step closer. ‘That is what Lord Dorn wishes of you – that you find any of your brothers that you can.’

Crius's search begins in Legacies of Betrayal

An extract from Butcher's Nails
by Aaron Dembski-bowden

Before the primarch’s ascension, before his capture, the ship had carried a different name. In those more innocent days, it sailed as the Adamant Resolve, flagship of the War Hounds Legion.

But time changes all things. Now, the XII Legion were the Eaters of Worlds, and their flagship bore the name Conqueror.

It barely resembled the ship it had once been. Ridged by brutal armour plating, spiked by countless weapon batteries, the Conqueror had become a crude bastion beyond any other warship in Imperial space.

At the vanguard of an immense battle fleet, it hung in space with its engines powered down, rank upon rank of weapons batteries aimed at a golden warship leading an opposing flotilla.

The enemy ship had never changed its name. Beyond the desecration of the Imperial eagles that once lined its spinal battlements, it remained unchanged beyond battle scars earned in the name of rebellion. Here was the flagship of the XVII Legion, and along its prow, etched in High Gothic, was the name Fidelitas Lex – the Law of Faith.

The Bearers of the Word and the Eaters of Worlds stood upon the edge of war. Hundreds of vessels, suspended in the cold void, each side awaiting the order to fire first.

On the bridge of the Conqueror, three hundred souls were frozen in their duties. The only sounds were the background mutter of servitors droning about their work, and the omnipresent rumble of the ship’s reactor.

Most of the souls, human and post-human alike, felt an alloy of emotion. In some, fear mixed with guilty excitement, while in others, anticipation became a rush of sensation not far from anger. Every set of eyes remained fixed upon the oculus view screen, bearing witness to the fleet that lay beyond.

One figure towered above all others. Armoured in layered ceramite of gold and bronze, he watched the oculus with narrowed eyes. Where others bore a smile, he carried a slit of scar tissue and cracked teeth. Like all of his brothers, he resembled his father as a statue resembles the man it was raised to honour. Yet this statue was flawed by cracks and blemishes – a twitch in the muscles around his eye, a scarred ravine running along his shaven skull.

He reached a gloved hand to scratch at the back of his head, where an old wound would never quite fade. At last, he drew breath to speak, in the voice of a man distracted by pain.

‘We could open fire. We could leave half their vessels as cold husks, and Horus would be none the wiser.’

Behind him, seated on raised throne, Captain Lotara Sarrin cleared her throat.

The statuesque warrior didn’t turn to face her. ‘Hnnh. You have something to say, captain?’

Lotara swallowed before speaking. ‘My lord–’

‘I am no one’s lord. How many times must I speak those words?’ He wiped the beginnings of a nosebleed on the back of his hand. ‘Say what you wish to say.’

‘Angron,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘We can’t go through with this. We have to stand down.’

Now the primarch turned. A tremor shivered its way along the fingers of his left hand. Perhaps a suppressed need to reach for a weapon, perhaps nothing more than the misfiring synapses at the core of an abused brain. ‘Tell me why, captain.’

The captain’s eyes flickered to the left. Several of Angron’s warriors stood by her throne, their helms turned to the screen, the very avatars of cold indifference. She eyed one of them in particular, imploring him to speak. ‘Khârn?’

‘Do not look to Khârn to argue on your behalf, girl. I asked you to speak.’ The primarch’s hands were twitching, the fingers shaking like serpents in spasm.

‘We can’t go through with this. If we attack their fleet, even if we win, we’ll be crippled behind enemy lines with a shadow of the force we need to carry out the Warmaster’s orders.’

‘I did not force this confrontation, captain.’

‘With the greatest respect, sir – yes, you did. You have pushed Lord Aurelian’s patience time and time again. Four worlds have fallen to us, and each one was an assault declared against our primary orders. You knew he would react eventually.’ Lotara gestured to the oculus, where the enemy fleet – dozens of warships that had been allies only hours before – drifted ever closer. ‘You forced this engagement, and both the crew and the Legion have obeyed you. We now stand upon the precipice, and it mustn’t go any further. We can’t cross that line.’

Angron turned back to the oculus, his scarred lips curled into something like a smile. He wasn’t blind to the truth in her words, but therein lay the problem. He hadn’t expected his brother to react. He’d never imagined Lorgar would suddenly grow a backbone.

‘Khârn,’ murmured Lotara, turning to the assembled captains again. ‘Do something.’

The primarch heard his equerry approach from behind. Khârn’s voice was softer than many of his kindred; not gentle by any means, but soft, low, and measured.

‘She’s right, you know.’

Such informality would be anathema within the other Legions. The World Eaters, however, obeyed no traditions but their own.

‘She may be right,’ the primarch conceded. ‘But I sense opportunity in the winds. Lorgar was always the weakest of us, and his Word Bearers are no better. We could wipe this miserable Legion and their deluded master from the face of the galaxy right now. If you tell me that doesn’t appeal to you, Khârn, I will call you a liar.’

Khârn removed his helm with a faint hiss of air pressure. Given his life so far, the fact that his face was unscarred seemed nothing less than miraculous.

‘Lorgar has changed, as has his Legion. They have traded naivety for fanaticism, and even outnumbered, they would bleed us.’

‘We were born to bleed, Khârn.’

‘Maybe so, but we can choose our battles. We’ve pushed our luck with the Word Bearers, and I agree with Lotara. We should rejoin the fleet, cease attacking worlds on a whim, and continue sailing into Ultima Segmentum.’

Angron exhaled slowly. ‘But we could kill him.’

‘Of course we could. But would you win a battle and cost Horus the war? That doesn’t sound like you.’

The primarch smiled. It was a slow, sinister thing – a curving of the gash where his lips had once been.

‘My detractors would say it sounds exactly like me.’ As he spoke, he rested his fingertips to his pulsing temples. His headaches never ceased, but they were always at their most vicious when his blood ran hot. Today, the primarch’s blood burned.

Lotara ignored the warriors as they conversed. She had other matters to deal with, such as three hundred bridge crew caught between staring at Angron, awaiting his orders, and watching the enemy fleet growing in the viewscreen.

‘The Fidelitas Lex is matching us. She’s accelerated to attack speed, and crossed into maximum weapon range. Her void shields are still up, and her weapon arrays are primed. Her support squadron will reach maximum weapon range in twenty-three seconds.’

Angron snorted blood onto the deck. ‘We won’t back down.’

‘Maintain all ahead full,’ Lotara called out. Then, quieter, ‘Sir, you have to reconsider this.’

‘Watch your tongue, human. Ready the Ursus Claws.’

‘As you wish.’ She relayed the order, and the shout was taken up across the bridge, officer to officer, servitor to servitor. ‘The Ursus Claws will be ready in four minutes.’

‘Good. We will need them.’

‘Incoming hololithic transmission from the Lex,’ Lotara called out. ‘It’s Lord Aurelian.’

The primarch chuckled his bass rumble again. ‘Now let’s see what the serpent has to say.’

The hololithic image appeared in the air before Angron, casting the master of the World Eaters with a flickering mirror image. Where Angron was broken, Lorgar was flawless; where one brother snarled a smirk, the other offered a cold, fierce smile. When Lorgar spoke after several long moments, he had only one question to ask.

‘Why?’

Angron stared at the distorted, crackling image of his brother. ‘I am a warrior, Lorgar. Warriors wage war.’

The image stuttered as interference took hold. ‘The age of warriors is over, brother. We need crusaders now. Faith, devotion, discipline...’

Angron barked a laugh. ‘I have never failed to win a war my way. I buy my victories with the edge of my axe, and I am content with how history will judge me.’

The image of Lorgar shook its tattooed head. ‘The Warmaster sent us here for a reason.’

‘I would take you more seriously if you did not hide behind Horus.’

‘Very well.’ The rasp of vox interference stole Lorgar’s voice for a moment. ‘I brought us here, and my plan stands on the edge of failure because you cannot control your rage. We will lose this war, brother. How can you not see that? United, we will take the Throneworld. Horus will rule as the new Emperor. But divided, we will fall. You may be content now, but will you be content if we lose? If history paints us as heretics and traitors? That destiny awaits us if we grind our Legions together out here in the void.’

Lorgar hesitated, studying the other primarch as if he could glean some hidden answer. ‘Angron. Please, don’t force this battle, as you’ve forced so many others.’

Angron’s hands began to shake again. He cracked his knuckles, to keep his fingers busy. The ache at the back of his head had become a rolling, tidal throb now – an unscratchable itch within his brain.

‘The Ursus Claws are ready,’ Captain Sarrin said softly. ‘Ready to–’

Her words trailed away as the deck sirens wailed.

The xenos attack in Legacies of Betrayal

An extract from The Divine Word
by Gav Thorpe

‘The Word of the Emperor must be Read and Heard with Diligence, so that you may arrive to the Knowledge that is needful for you.’

– from the The Lectitio Divinitatus

The sky above the city flashed and cracked with arcs of lightning, starkly silhouetting the army retreating from the shattered outskirts. Thousands of men and women pulled back from Milvian, bloodied and despondent. The burnt shells of tanks and transports were left in their wake as the soldiers of the Therion Cohort responded swiftly and gratefully to the retreat order.

Shellfire and las-blasts followed them, further thinning their numbers, until covering barrages from hundreds of emplaced guns fell upon Milvian, stalling any pursuit. In the growing gloom of twilight, the Therions streamed towards their waiting comrades.

The display view faded to static as the recon-link was cut by the observation officers accompanying the assault. Marcus was relieved that he did not have to look at the downcast columns trudging back to the Imperial lines; the view was replaced by a strategic schematic of lines and symbols and target designations that cast a clinical veneer over the whole, depressing affair.

It was not the first setback that Marcus Valerius had faced in his military career but he wondered if it would be the last. The Therion vice-Caesari pulled his attention away from the main screen on the command deck and returned his gaze to the small communications monitor in the panel beside him.

‘The batteries at Milvian must be silenced by midday at the latest. There can be no further delays. Our success depends upon it.’

Looking at the stern face of Commander Branne in the monitor display, Marcus knew that the Raven Guard captain was not employing hyperbole. If Branne said the campaign hinged on his army seizing Milvian in the next eighteen hours, then he could be sure that it was the truth.

Though Branne kept his tone even, free from accusation, Marcus was well aware that he deserved far harsher treatment. The initial attack on Milvian had stalled early on, and the Therion Cohort had been forced back in some disarray.

But it was a setback that the vice-Caesari was determined to rectify.

‘Everything is being prepared for a fresh assault at dawn,’ Marcus assured the Raven Guard commander. He had rushed the initial attack, perhaps out of overconfidence, or simply eagerness. More than seventeen hundred Therions had paid for the mistake with their lives. ‘I have determined a new attack approach that should see us break through to the batteries this time. We will engage with full force and nothing less. Your ships will be clear for low orbital attack.’

‘We are poised to strike a deadly blow,’ Branne continued, labouring a point that he had made several times before. Marcus accepted the reminder in silence, head bowed. ‘Your advance on the second capital, Milvian, has sent much of the traitors’s higher command fleeing to a bunker complex thirty kilometres south of the city. They will not remain there for long. The Raven Guard will fall upon the renegade commanders with gunship and drop pod in eighteen hours’s time; providing that the Therions and their auxiliaries can take Milvian and silence the defence lasers and other anti-orbital weapons guarding the city’s surrounds.’

Branne did not need to reiterate what was at stake. With the taking of Milvian and the elimination of the traitor command, the world of Euesa would be returned to the Imperial fold and with it control of the Vandreggan Sector.

There was nothing Marcus could say that would not sound like excuses or argument to the Legiones Astartes officer. ‘Yes, commander. The Milvian batteries will fall.’

‘Confirmed. Is there anything else?’

There was, but Marcus kept his thoughts to himself. There was the dream.

But the bustling command centre was no place to discuss a private matter between Valerius and Branne.

‘Nothing, commander.’

‘That is reassuring, vice-Caesari. Fight well.’

The display shimmered and then disappeared. Marcus issued a few orders for forces to move forward and cover the retreat. Assured that all was being done that could be done, the weary vice-Caesari left the command deck and returned to his chambers.

A gentle cough attracted his attention and he stopped to look at Pelon, who was waiting expectantly by the closed curtains across the window. The youth was maturing into a slender but muscled young man, and bore his rank of sub-tribune with pride. It was hard to reconcile the determined figure accompanying Marcus with the easily-startled boy who had been assigned as his manservant ten years before.

‘Yes, Pelon?’ said Marcus.

‘Shall I let in some light, vice-Caesari?’

Valerius waved a hand in ambivalent reply, dismissing the distraction as he started pacing, exhausted in body but his mind whirling with the implications of the defeat. Pelon took this as permission and drew on the cord that pulled back the heavy drapes. The last rays of bluish sunlight streamed in through a trio of arched windows, revealing wooded hills and slate-grey clouds.

Marcus stopped, taken aback by the view. He had been so occupied with the attack that he had not looked out at the landscape of Euesa for several days. He strode to the window and watched as a tree-crowned hill slid past.

Of course, the hill was not moving; the relative motion came from the massive Capitol Imperialis transport that served as Marcus’s headquarters. Eighty metres long and fifty high, the Contemptuous trundled relentlessly forwards at no more than a brisk walking pace, carried on long tracks, its slab sides dotted with viewports and weapon sponsons. Five kilometres away was another lumbering Imperialis – the Iron General commanded by Praefector Antonius, Marcus’s younger brother.

Each of the super-heavy war engines carried two companies of the Therion Cohort – one hundred men and accompanying battle tanks – while a host of Mechanicum tech-priests, adepts and servitors tended the massive behemoth cannon and hundreds of secondary weapons.

Around the pair of transports the rest of the Therions advanced, on foot and in troop carriers, seven hundred thousand men in all. Amongst them strode the Scout and Battle Titans of the Legio Vindictus, supported by several thousand mechanically-augmented skitarii, sagitarii, praetorians and heraklii, along with dozens more strange war engines and service vehicles.

There were other super-heavy vehicles in the army – Baneblades and Shadowswords, Stormhammers and Leviathans of the Capricorn 13th Suppression regiment – alongside hundreds of Leman Russ tanks, Chimera transports, Hydra anti-aircraft cannons and many other tanks and war engines. With them came Gryphons and siege bombards, Basilisk assault guns and mobile missile platforms.

In the two and a half years since the new Therion Cohort had been blooded at the Perfect Fortress of the Emperor’s Children, Marcus’s army had grown strong indeed.

The route of the advance was being paved, in some places literally, by the Lothor Pioneer Corps. Fifteen thousand men and as many engineering vehicles cut a swath through the woods, levelling hills and cutting ramps down the cliffs and escarpments to ease the passage of the host that followed them. Rivers were dammed or bridged by cunningly-designed machines. Swamps had been drained and roadways laid for hundreds of kilometres on end across the plains and low-lying foothills.

The only part of the force not represented were the Raven Guard themselves. The Legion of Lord Corax was dispersed across Euesa and in orbit, but it had been the Raven Guard that had heralded the arrival of the Emperor’s forces, and the Raven Guard that had seized the space port at Carlingia to allow the Therions and their allies to land their immense war machines.

‘The command council is in two hours,’ said Valerius, turning away from the military spectacle. He crossed to the cot made up in one corner of the chamber, the constant rumble of the massive transport’s engines no longer a distraction. ‘Wake me in one hour.’

He shrugged off his heavy coat into Pelon’s waiting hands. As he sat on the edge of the bed and Pelon knelt to remove his boots, the vice-Caesari noticed that his attendant was unusually pensive.

‘Something is on your mind. Speak it.’

The attendant hesitated, concentrating on his task. He did not meet his master’s gaze as he spoke. ‘You did not mention your dreams to Commander Branne this time, I assume.’

‘I did not,’ Valerius replied. With his boots removed, he swung his legs onto the bed and laid back, hands clasped across his chest. ‘He made it clear after the debacle with the Raptors that I was not to speak of them again.’

‘The last such dream saved the Raven Guard from annihilation, vice-Caesari. Do you not think this latest experience might be pertinent to the campaign?’

‘I am fortunate that Lord Corax has appeared to have dispensed with any curiosity over our timely arrival at Isstvan, and Branne would have it remain so. It is clear to me that the primarch did not send me the visions and I am not about to raise issues that could lead to uncomfortable questions. We have seen some strange things in this war already. An Imperial Army commander who has dream-visions would not be tolerated.’

‘But what if the dreams were sent by another, higher power than the primarch?’ There was slight admonition in Pelon’s tone.

‘Nonsense,’ said Valerius, sitting up. He looked at his attendant. ‘There are no higher powers.’

‘I can think of one,’ Pelon suggested quietly.

The valet delved into a pocket of his tunic and brought forth a sheaf of tattered papers and plas-prints. He became more animated.

‘I was given these by one of the Lothorians, in respect to an entirely different concern. There is truth in these writings, deeper than anything I have read before. The Emperor has not abandoned us, but continues to watch and guide his followers. It is all in here.’

He proffered the bundle of sheets to Valerius, but the vice-Caesari waved them away with a contemptuous snort.

‘I expected better of you, Pelon. I thought you had been raised a Therion and taught the wisdom of logic and reason. Now you seek to peddle these superstitions as a deeper truth? Do you not think I have heard these prattling of the divine before? It is an affront to the Imperial Truth, and everything we have fought for.’

‘Apologies, vice-Caesari, I did not mean to offend,’ said Pelon, hastily stuffing the texts back into his pocket.

‘Wake me in one hour, and we’ll say no more about god-Emperors and divine guidance.’

Valerius's eyes are opened in Legacies of Betrayal

An extract from Censure
by Nick Kyme

Vhetok Raan sights the target through his scope, carefully angling the crosshairs over its back. There’s a strong side wind blowing that reeks of radiation decay, and he adjusts the aim to compensate when his spotter whispers, reading from a brass gauge.

‘Eighteen millimetres left, elevate three millimetres.’

Raan makes the adjustments without acknowledgement. He does not nod, nor even blink. It would spoil the shot and he knows he will only get one. Miss, and they will have to run. He doubts they would escape. He and Scarbek would be dead – or worse, left for dead for the Unburdened to feast upon.

The target is one of them. A genetically-enhanced killing machine, bent on revenge. Ever since the world burned under the light of its own sun, they have been out for blood. A humming power pack attached to the target’s armour creates a heat haze in the air above it. It feels close even through Raan’s rad-suit. He can practically taste it.

A smirr of rad-dust occludes his vision for a few seconds, his finger moist in his glove just caressing the trigger of his sniper rifle. The rebreather fastened to his face and neck starts to pinch.

Raan holds his breath. The target is crouched, barely moving, as though he might be patiently digging for something in the dirt. The sniper’s eye line is a tunnel, myopic and focused, and narrows just a fraction as the moment arrives…

Cobalt-blue flashes in the pre-dawn light, and the crouching figure shifts a little.

‘Now,’ Scarbek hisses through the vox.

Raan squeezes the trigger.

Like lightning on the sun, a heavy calibre shell scores the rad-hot air as a low cough escapes from the rifle. It seems to pass in slow motion. He fancies he can see the bullet turning, air particles dislocating at its passage through them, a faint and long-lived spark as it strikes metal and penetrates…

But there is no blood.

There should be blood, even through all that armour, a sign that his shot was a mortal one.

He’s turning, mouth opening in a half-shout, world slowing further as if in partial suspended animation.

No blood, he tries to shout. No–

A cold ball of pain flares in Raan’s back. Then Scarbek’s throat is bulging open like a burst water main and gushing red all over his rad-suit, soaking the robes beneath.

Cobalt-blue flashes again. Only this time it is behind them, around them, stabbing into them.

In his eye line, which is no longer confined by the rifle scope, but myopic all the same and ever shrinking to black, Raan sees the target still crouched down, as lifeless as it has been ever since they first sighted him.

Now there is blood. Lots of blood, but it is all theirs.

Darkness rolls in, incongruous during the rad-scarred day, and Vhetok Raan realises – too late – that they have been tricked.

Aeonid Thiel takes an ankle of each corpse in either hand and starts to drag. He has slung the guns across his body already, widening the straps so they will fit his broader and more heavily armoured frame. He doesn’t enjoy this grunt work, but it is the practical thing to do. Hide the bodies, bury them in the sun-bleached desert.

Finding a good spot, he starts to dig. Gauntleted hands make for surprisingly good shovels. Bury the dead deep enough and even the Unburdened can’t sniff them out. Thiel suspects the radiation is fouling their senses, just as it is fouling his. Auspex, scanner, even his closed helm’s retinal display are all unreliable in Calth’s scorched atmosphere.

Graves dug and then covered back up, a chrono warning flashes up on his left lens. It is brief and marred by visual static, but about the only thing actually working that provides him with useful information. Radiation levels are spiking. A fresh solar event blazes on the horizon. Burn-up is due in eight minutes, eighteen seconds and counting.

‘My gratitude for your assistance, Brother Akanis,’ he says to the distant, blue-armoured corpse, ‘but I must be on my way.’

No need to bury him – the Unburdened hollowed Akanis out days ago. Only armour and bone remains. There was a time when Thiel would have been reprimanded for such disrespect, using a dead battle-brother as a lure, but Thiel is no stranger to censure. He still wears the red proudly across his battle-helm, though it no longer means what it once did. Had he not defied his superiors, then Marius Gage and even Lord Guilliman might be dead. As it is they live, but they have left Calth behind.

Thiel thought that he had too, but now he is back. Another act of insubordination on his part.

It isn’t that Aeonid Thiel lacks respect, he simply acknowledged more quickly than his brothers that the rules of engagement had changed. Old tactics laid down in his primarch’s Codex, as it is being called, were not always practical. Thiel wears the practical upon his armour, a ceramite and battle-scarred treatise of all the ploys and stratagems he has utilised in this most unconventional underworld war.

One more stretch of hardline cable to check for this tour. He marks it upon his armour with a short stylus, including coordinates, depth, and time. Thiel runs, staying low, away from the dead Akanis.

Reaching the dig site, he pulls a seismic stave from his equipment belt, plants it deep and activates the subterranean mapping pulse. Takes a few seconds to kick in. Checking the countdown in his left retinal lens, he realises he has but a few to spare.

‘Come on, come on…’

Radiation levels are rising faster, a red and fatal dawn is already burning the horizon in a shimmering line of fire. Thiel feels the temperature increase, even as he shuts down the warning chime in his battle-helm to silence his armour’s plaintive urging.

‘Not yet.’

If he finds the break in the hardline cable, he will have to come back. No way he can dig now – the ambush took up too much time. That particular stratagem is written on his left shoulder guard. It is not the first time he has employed it, nor will it be the last.

Seismic stave comes back negative.

‘Damn.’

Thiel tweaks the depth gain and boosts the signal pulse, knowing that radiation and several metric tonnes of earth, stone and steel will be clouding any weak returns.

Another few seconds lapse, and the chrono goes from amber to red. Time is running out.

Stave beeps again.

‘Negative… damn it!’

An actual wave of fire is boiling across the surface of Calth, once a shining frontier of the Ultramar Empire, now rendered into endless desert. Numinus City is a husk, inhabited by corpses and predatory shadows. Gone are the Dera Caren Lowlands, their forests turned to ash. Above, Veridia blazes, not so beautiful now. She is a harbinger, a pearl transformed into a fiery coal of hellish retribution.

Aeonid Thiel was marked for censure, but now Veridia seeks to mark him anew. She has marked him for death, her paint a solar flare that will burn away the red and blue, and leave his armour black.

Leaving the stave and much of his equipment behind, Thiel runs.

The Underworld War continues in Legacies of Betrayal

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Brotherhood of the Storm first published in hardback
© Games Workshop Ltd. 2012
Serpent first published in the Horus Heresy Weekender Programme
© Games Workshop Ltd. 2013
The Divine Word first published in the Black Library Weekender Anthology Vol. I
© Games Workshop Ltd. 2012
Heart of the Conqueror first published in the Horus Heresy Weekender II Programme
© Games Workshop Ltd. 2014
Veritas Ferrum, Strike and Fade, Butcher’s Nails and Warmaster first published as audio dramas
© Games Workshop Ltd. 2012
Riven and Kryptos first published as eBooks
© Games Workshop Ltd. 2012
Honour to the Dead, The Eightfold Path, Guardian of Order, Censure and Lucius, the Eternal Blade first published as audio dramas © Games Workshop Ltd. 2013
Lone Wolf first published as an eBook
© Games Workshop Ltd. 2013
Hunter’s Moon, Wolf’s Claw and Thief of Revelations first published as audio dramas
© Games Workshop Ltd. 2014

This edition published in 2014 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Cover by Neil Roberts.
Internal illustrations by Tiernen Trevallion.

© Games Workshop Limited 2014. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-78251-753-5

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