Table of Contents

Cover

Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon - Extract

Legal

eBook license

1. Yarrick

The return to Armageddon was a hard one. As we made our way back from Basquit, the warp convulsed. Waves of insanity slammed against the Glaive of Pyran. The Lunar-class cruiser was a good ship, strong in hull and crew. Even so, cries echoed down its length. Some were the wailing of tocsins as the Gellar field’s integrity was strained by the currents and tides of the immaterium moved to anger. Others came from the Glaive’s astropathic choir and navigator. In the troop holds, we felt the cruiser shake as its reality came under assault and the certainty of its path eroded. At one point, the walls reverberated with a groan that was too deafening to be human, and too agonised to be metal.

And yet this was not the storm. This was the storm building. The Glaive of Pyran held true to its course, and when it exited the warp, we were in the Armageddon System.

‘A rough passage, Commissar Yarrick,’ Colonel Artura Brenken said to me in the shuttle that carried us from the cruiser towards Hive Infernus. There was a jolt as we began re-entry. My grav-harness held me in place as the fuselage shook.

‘Very,’ I agreed. I raised my voice over the violent rattling caused by the atmosphere’s turbulence. ‘I doubt many more ships will be able to enter or leave the system until the storm passes.’

Brenken gave me a sharp look. ‘This storm worries you.’

‘All warp storms do.’

‘This one more than others.’

I gave her a crooked grin. She knew me well. She should, after so many decades. We had first met shortly after my initial mission as commissar. After serving on Mistral, I had been seconded to the Armageddon Steel Legion for the first time. She had been a sergeant, then a captain, and had been a colonel now for over seventy years. She would have made a fine general, and in my more cynical moments, I sometimes thought that was precisely why she had never reached that rank. She was a superb soldier, but a poor politician – an officer who became more uneasy the further she was from a battlefield.

She wouldn’t make general now. She was near the end of her career. We both were. We were old. Juvenat treatments had kept us physically viable, but her face, like mine, had been moulded by the decades upon decades of war. The unnatural smoothness of her augmetic lower jaw stood out in stark contrast to the landscape of wrinkles and scars on the rest of her clean-shaven skull.

No, colonel would be the peak of her ascension in the ranks.

But she had ascended. I was still a simple commissar.

We both had debriefings to attend. She, as commanding officer of the 252nd Regiment of the Armageddon Steel Legion, would be due for official commendation, following the success of the campaign against the ork raiders. My day would be less pleasant. Seroff would see to that.

Brenken prodded me. ‘What is it about this storm?’

‘Nothing definite,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t like its conjunction with what we found on Basquit.’

‘Orks…’ Brenken began, but was interrupted by turbulence.

I was sitting next to the viewing block and looked out at our descent through the cloud cover of Armageddon. The air was dense and filthy as an oil slick, lightning flashing between roiling fists of brown and yellow. Then we dropped below the cover. The air was still far from clear. I looked out through the eternal layers of grit and banks of sluggish, low-hanging smog. Corrosive rain streaked the viewing block, blurring my first view of Infernus. At this distance, the spires of the hive were indistinguishable from its chimneys. It was a hulking mass of black, filth-crusted iron and rockcrete surging up from the planet’s surface, forever surrounded by the choking aura of its industry. It was nestled between two mountain chains – the Pallidus to the west, and the Diablo to the east. The winds of the Season of Fire buffeted the shuttle, but did nothing to clear away the smog. The bowl between the mountains held the poisoned air trapped over the city.

Brenken tried again. ‘Orks are a threat, but hardly an uncommon one. And we purged them from Basquit.’

‘But what were they doing so deep into Imperial space?’ I asked. ‘And where did they come from? There aren’t any ork-held worlds in any proximity to the Armageddon sub-sector. And then there is what we heard.’

She looked troubled at that reminder. ‘You think there’s a connection?’

‘I don’t know. I hope not.’ I tried to imagine what a link between orks and warp storm could mean. My failure did not reassure me.

The shuttle brought us to a landing pad that nestled at the base of the cluster of spires that housed the government of Infernus. The uppermost reaches were also, at this time, the residence of the ruler of Armageddon. Brenken and I disembarked. A staff officer stood on the pad, waiting to escort her to the debriefing. When she saw who was waiting for me, Brenken gave me a sympathetic nod. ‘We’ll speak later, commissar,’ she said.

‘Until then, colonel,’ I answered. I walked across the pitted rockcrete to where Lord Commissar Dominic Seroff stood at the edge of the landing zone.

‘Sebastian,’ he said. The familiarity was an expression of contempt.

‘Lord commissar,’ I answered. I kept my tone neutral, greeting formally correct. I would not begin the hostilities. I left that to Seroff.

His once-blond hair had turned a blind white. It had receded from the top of his head, but the fringe that ran from ear to ear still had pronounced curls. There was something a bit comical in its refusal to be tamed. More than a century ago, Seroff’s eyes had shone with a sense of the comic too, but they hadn’t for a long time. They were cold. His face was pinched with bitterness. I was in no small way responsible for the officer Seroff had become. I did not regret the decisions I had made, or the actions I had taken. They were necessary. They were correct. But I had been suffering their consequences for much of my life. Seroff was one of those consequences.

‘The 252nd returns in triumph,’ said the lord commissar.

‘It does.’

‘Congratulations are in order.’ His mouth, pursed, tight-lipped, twitched in the right corner.

‘Thank you.’ I had just seen what passed for a smile on Seroff’s features. The day was going to be worse than I had expected.

Behind me, the shuttle lifted off again. Seroff said nothing while the roar washed over us. Even after the sound of the ship’s engines had faded into the distance, we stood in silence. The rain pattered against my cap. It ran down my greatcoat. I felt the faint tingle of its acid as it dripped from my hands. Seroff was savouring the moment. I did not grant him the satisfaction of showing impatience or confusion.

‘Your actions on Basquit have received the attention they deserve,’ Seroff said at last. ‘Overlord von Strab wishes to see you.’

Ah. Light began to dawn. I had a good idea which of my actions would have drawn the interest of von Strab. ‘I am at his disposal,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ Seroff said. ‘You are.’

My formulation had been an expression of civility. Seroff had underscored its brutal truth. I was not, strictly speaking, under the authority of the overlord. I was, though, under Seroff’s, and he had just told me that he would see von Strab’s wishes concerning me carried out.

‘When, lord commissar?’ I asked. Still neutral. Still correct. Did Seroff seriously hope to see me worried? If so, that was disappointing. He knew me better than that.

‘He’s waiting for you now,’ Seroff said.

I nodded. I almost thanked him for delivering the message, but there was nothing to be gained with the slight. I had no interest in the trivial games of personal pride that were consuming Seroff’s energy. They were another source of disappointment. I understood why Seroff hated me. But I had once believed he had more discernment. I had once believed he would have made a superb commissar. Instead, he had become an excellent politician.

I made the sign of the aquila and walked towards the spire doors. Seroff remained where he was, preferring to stand in the rain than appear to act as an escort. No doubt he imagined himself a forbidding figure, alone on the landing pad in the rain. I’m sure he was, for the rank and file. But we wore the same uniform. We had come up through the schola progenium together. The more he tried to intimidate me, the more he diminished himself.

I didn’t look back. ‘Throne, Dominic,’ I muttered. ‘Have a little dignity.’ We were much too ancient for such sad games.

I had never met von Strab, and I had never been to the overlord’s Infernus residence. My dealings with all of the governmental bodies of the hives had been limited. I knew who the governors were, though. And I knew my way around the administrative centres. I had been attached to the Steel Legion long enough now that Armageddon was as close to a home as I had ever known. Seroff in his animosity kept me from the centres of the decision-making, but he had not prevented me from learning where those centres were, and who inhabited them. My first duty was to the Emperor, and the more I knew about Armageddon, the better I could serve the Father of Mankind.

I had learned the cost of ignorance long ago, on Mistral. Lord Commissar Rasp, my mentor and Seroff’s, had warned us that what we did not know of a world’s political currents could be deadly. He had been correct. Even forewarned, we had stumbled. Our ignorance had almost killed us all. I had taken the lesson to heart.

So I had come to know Armageddon. Over the years, I had come to know its spires and its depths. And they knew me.

I navigated the halls, stairs and lifts that would take me to von Strab’s quarters with confidence. I would not appear at his door like a lost supplicant. I had my pride, too, no matter how much Seroff worked to trample it in the mud.

The higher I went, the more luxurious my surroundings became, though the grime of Armageddon was always present. Even scrubbed by the ventilation system’s filters, the air tasted of grit, and had the faint smell of sulphur. The stained glass windows were darkened by the smoke and ash of the atmosphere. They also bore other, more symbolic stains. They paid tribute to the accomplishments of the planet’s ruling families. There was a grim continuity to the lineages pictured. On the surface, Armageddon’s politics had been characterised by remarkable stability for centuries. The same families had governed the hives for generations, and the von Strab dynasty’s rule of the planet had been unchallenged for as long. Beneath that surface was a history of rivalries, assassinations, treachery and corruption. The von Strabs embodied that tradition better than any of the other families, which was another reason they had ruled for so long. Their line of succession was neither patrilineal nor matrilineal. It was homicidal.

The corridor I was in branched. To the right was the gateway to the quarters of Erner von Kierska, Governor of Hive Infernus. I went left. The hall ended after a few metres at an ornate iron desk. Behind it sat a serf in the livery of the von Strabs, and behind her was a bronze door engraved with the family’s coat of arms: eight spears, one for each of the great hives of Armageddon, held by a mailed fist. I presented myself to the serf, who ushered me to the door. She pulled the lever beside it, and it slid open, granting me access to the lift to the final reaches of the spire.

For all the luxury on display, this was still Armageddon, still an industrial world. The machinery of the door was not smooth. It ratcheted with age and rust. The lift’s cage was unadorned, and it shook and screeched as it carried me upward. It sounded like the leavings of industry and the blood of politics had caked its gears. The bangs and mechanical stuttering lasted several minutes, and then the door opened again.

I entered the vestibule to the overlord’s quarters. At this height, the rockcrete of the walls, floor and ceiling had been given a cladding of gold-veined marble. The impression created was that here, thousands of metres up, was where the construction of the hive had begun. Despite the taste of the air, the stone was clean. The windows were larger and more elaborate than those below, though just as darkened by the outside ash. They suggested, without actually tipping into the heretical, that the von Strabs had been given explicit dispensation from the Emperor to rule over Armageddon in perpetuity. The chamber was a large one, and empty except for another desk. It was made of the same marble as the cladding, and appeared to grow out of the floor. There was nothing else in the vast space. The excess of luxury was ridiculous. It radiated vanity and waste. It was very difficult to take the power behind this lavish display seriously.

Failing to do so, however, would be a mistake. One that others had made. Fatally.

The serf rose from his desk as I approached. His expression was a smooth sculpture of servility and superiority. ‘Commissar Yarrick,’ he said before I could speak. ‘Thank you for coming.’ As if I were waiting on his pleasure. ‘The overlord is expecting you.’ He barely repressed his amusement.

I couldn’t help myself. ‘You mean he won’t be surprised?’ I said as I walked over to the desk.

The serf paused, blinking, his hands on the gold-leaf-encrusted double doors in the centre of the far wall. He looked back at me, confused. I was not showing the required anxiety upon meeting the Great Man. I stepped forward and returned his stare. He swallowed, looked away, and pushed the doors open. He announced me and withdrew, closing the doors behind me as I stepped through. The boom of the doors bounced around the chamber in which I now found myself. I assumed the intended effect was more deliberate intimidation.

The overlord’s Infernus throne room was twice the size of the vestibule. It occupied the entire width of the spire. The east and west walls were gigantic stained glass windows. Mirrored heroic portraits of von Strab in military uniform towered above the room, a colossus with his feet planted on the diminished orb of Armageddon. There was far more gold in the marble cladding. It twisted around pillars, exploded in convoluted webs from the keystones of the vaults, and covered the throne itself in such a profusion of leaves that it looked like a disease. At regular intervals around the periphery of the chamber stood the honour guard clad in black armaplas and ceramite armour. Over the heart on the carapace was the von Strab coat of arms, but otherwise there was little adornment. The soldiers were equipped in an attempt to resemble the Tempestus Scions, the resemblance enough to cow the citizens of Armageddon. Only the effort involved impressed me. Well protected from standard-issue M-35 Pattern rifles, they were only exceptional as a piece of theatre.

On the throne, Overlord Herman von Strab presided in all his glory. The fourth son of Overlord Luther (deceased), younger brother of Anton (deceased), Otto (deceased) and Vilhelm (deceased), he was a squat man, almost as wide as he was tall, fat enough to look stronger than he was. He wore the same uniform as his image on the windows, darker than the dirty ochre of the Steel Legion trench coats, though its cut was similar enough to declare von Strab as the supreme commander of the regiment. He was bald, with a heavy brow that shadowed his sharp gaze. A bionic monocle sat over his right eye. A thin mechadendrite ran coiled from the lens around his skull and rose over his pate to bury itself in his forehead. Information boosts to his frontal lobe, I guessed, amplifying his ability to foresee consequences. All the better to plan and scheme.

Given what happened to Armageddon, the widespread belief is that the monocle was a spectacular failure. Given what happened to von Strab, I’m not so sure. I think the device could only have strengthened what was already present in that devious mind.

On that day, however, I was less concerned with the function of von Strab’s lens than with doing what I could to prise something useful out of this meeting. I didn’t know what von Strab had in mind for me. My duty, at this moment, was to express my concerns. I knew in my gut that something was coming. But if I wanted von Strab to listen, I would have to find a better way of communicating a sense of urgency than intuition and foreboding.

‘Commissar Yarrick,’ von Strab said. ‘Welcome. I’ve heard many startling things about you. Very busy on Basquit, weren’t we?’ The voice that emerged from his thick lips was deep and nasal. It was oiled with a self-satisfied attempt at charm, but edged with a perpetual, defensive petulance.

‘We were,’ I answered. ‘The 252nd distinguished itself in heroic combat.’

‘So I’ve heard. So I’ve heard.’ He drummed the fingers of his right hand on a data-slate perched on the arm of the throne. He didn’t look at its screen. ‘A great victory, you would say.’

‘I would. The orks on Basquit have been exterminated. However–’

He cut me off. ‘Be that as it may, the victory was not without sacrifice.’

‘No war is.’

‘Basquit lost its overlord.’

‘True. But Albrecht Meinert wasn’t killed by orks.’

‘No. My cousin was murdered by his successor.’

Ah. I began to see where I stood. ‘I heard the rumour,’ I said, non-committal.

‘And you let such treason stand.’

The remarkable thing was von Strab spoke without a trace of irony. I responded in kind. ‘My duty was to rid the planet of orks, not to police its internal politics.’ All of which was true, but I was allowing myself the small pleasure of being as disingenuous as the overlord. Meinert had been an active hindrance to the Basquit campaign. He had insisted that the bulk of the troops be held in the defence of land and homes of the agri world’s ruling families. Lord Berthold Stratz had shown himself to have a much more realistic grasp of military necessities. He had also had designs on Meinert’s throne. While Brenken turned a blind eye, I had met with Stratz. We had spoken in bland, unobjectionable circumlocutions, and Stratz had departed convinced that the Imperium would welcome a new regime on Basquit with himself at the top. Within a day, Meinert was dead, Stratz was overlord, and the 252nd had been freed to bring the battle to the orks.

‘Your duty was to protect Basquit,’ von Strab said. ‘The orks were defeated, but there were incalculable losses of land and property.’ By which he meant the nobility’s holdings. Those lush valleys had become the battlefields where we had trapped the orks and exterminated them.

‘I did whatever I felt was necessary in the service of the Imperium.’

Von Strab smiled. ‘Of course you did. As do I.’

He meant the last statement as a threat. I used it instead as an opening. ‘Good. Then I must inform you that I am greatly concerned that the ork raid on Basquit was just the first sign of a much larger threat.’

‘Oh?’ Von Strab leaned back on his throne, signalling just how ready he was to take me seriously.

‘An ork incursion this deep into Imperial space is already one thing, but we have no adequate explanation for how they arrived there. We had no warning of any sort of approaching fleet. There were no ork vessels in orbit over Basquit.’

‘The greenskins travel the immaterium too.’

‘Indeed. And the reports I gathered on Basquit imply they fell planetside in a space hulk. But it was a small one, just large enough to hold the force we encountered. It may have come out of the warp, but it would have been too small to survive there for any length of time. I believe it was a fragment of something larger.’

‘I didn’t know you were given to such unsupported speculation, commissar.’

Not as much as I am given to hopeless tasks, I thought, but I forged on. ‘There is more. During the battle, I heard the orks chanting.’

Von Strab was looking more and more amused. ‘And what was it they were chanting?’

‘It sounded like Ghazghkull.’

‘You speak greenskin, don’t you, commissar?’ He spoke as if that made me as contemptible as the orks. ‘What does it mean?’

‘I believe it is a name.’

Von Strab shook his head. ‘So the brutes shout the name of their warlord. Please tell me you don’t believe that to be unusual.’

‘What was unusual was the depth of their fervour.’

‘Their fervour? You read the greenskins’ minds now? Are you a psyker, commissar?’ He laughed, pleased with his joke. An appreciative, dutiful snicker did the rounds of the honour guard.

I knew how this would end, but I did not give up. I would see my duty through. The odds against its success were irrelevant. I ignored von Strab’s jibe and summarised my position. ‘Orks attacked a planet in a strategically critical sub-sector. They were, I believe, united in their fervour for a single warlord. They must have emerged from the warp. There is a warp storm brewing. The conjunction of these factors should not be ignored.’

Von Strab regarded me for a few moments. ‘Are you done, commissar?’

‘I am.’

‘Then I thank you for this diversion. I hope you don’t mind if I turn to the reason I sent for you.’

My jaw clenched. I swallowed my rage. It would serve no purpose. ‘You are taking no action at all?’

‘About what you have just told me? Of course not. You are aware that the Feast of the Emperor’s Ascension is almost upon us? You know the scale of the celebration. I have enough to think about without indulging in surmise and fantasy.’

The fingers of my left hand twitched. The movement was very slight. I was barely conscious of it myself. Von Strab saw it, though. The monocle whirred faintly, and his eyes narrowed. He smiled again, much more broadly than before. ‘What are you doing, commissar? Are you reaching for that bolt pistol? What are you thinking? That I am guilty of dereliction? Shall I be executed? By you?’

I said nothing.

He laughed, enjoying himself. ‘We have much in common, don’t you think?’ He paused just long enough for my silence to turn into an insult. ‘No?’ he continued. ‘It’s true, though. We are both willing to do what is necessary. Without exception. Well, almost. I believe you are betraying your own principles at the moment. If I should die, why am I still speaking?’ The smile grew broader yet. I could see his teeth. They were yellow.

Whatever else von Strab was, and whatever his catastrophic weaknesses, he was a superb politician. A politician of the most leprous sort, but a brilliant example of his species. At this moment, he was demonstrating the skills that had made him overlord of Armageddon, and had kept him alive. Not only was I stymied, it was all I could do to keep my temper and not have myself gunned down.

In the years to come, I would ask myself if I made the right decision by staying my hand. I would wonder if events might have turned out differently. The questions still come to me during sleepless hours. If I had drawn my pistol, I would have been dead in the next second. But might I have been fast enough? Could I have killed von Strab then and there? Would my sacrifice have been worth it? Was there any chance it would have saved billions of lives?

I believe I made the right choice. The coming agony of Armageddon cannot be put down to the incompetence and venality of a single man. The Enemy racing our way was far too strong.

Even so, the questions still come.

I didn’t answer von Strab. I clasped my hands behind my back and waited.

When he saw I wasn’t going to be goaded, von Strab chuckled. ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘Well then. Enough of that.’ As if the conversation had been nothing more than banter between old friends. ‘The reason you are here, commissar, is to reap the rewards of your efforts on Banquit.’ And he had already made clear what he thought of those efforts. ‘Indeed, the rewards of your exemplary career.’ His bottom lip glistened with contempt.

‘I see.’

‘You have earned your retirement, Commissar Yarrick, and I have wonderful news.’ A pause and a quick, pursed grin. ‘I have intervened on your behalf with Lord Commissar Seroff. He has generously acceded to my request that we retain your services here on Armageddon. For the remainder of your service, you will have the honour of overseeing recruitment in Hades Hive.’

So he was ignoring my concerns, and putting me out to pasture. There was a role for political officers in the process that led to the formation of regiments. New recruits needed reminding of the singular purpose of their lives. Whether from the more privileged strata of society or from the depths of the underhive, they had to feel the impact of the commissar before the battlefield. They had to fear someone more than their sergeants.

But the role von Strab was assigning me was one normally reserved for commissars convalescing from war wounds. Officers temporarily unfit for combat. Such tours of duty rarely lasted for more than a few months. I didn’t believe the narrative von Strab was presenting, but I did believe he and Seroff had contrived this punishment together. Between them, they would ensure that I would spend the rest of my days in the most menial fashion possible.

I gave von Strab a crisp nod. ‘I see. Will that be all, overlord?’

‘You are dismissed.’

I turned on my heel and left the chamber. I was supposed to feel humiliated. I was enraged, but not because of my punishment. I was sure that something infinitely worse was coming to us all.

2. Mannheim

He woke with thoughts of burning. A single, fading image from his unconscious lingered before his mind’s eye: a flare of suns.

Princeps Kurtiz Mannheim of the Legio Metalica Titan Legion sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for his head to clear. He cursed the softness of the mattress. He was, at the insistence of Herman von Strab, quartered in a guest chamber one level down from the overlord’s residence. Von Strab wanted all the senior military currently stationed on Armageddon to be on hand for the feast day. Mannheim despised the posturing spectacle. But it would be over in two more days.

He stood and walked to the half-circle window in the east wall. The stained glass was black with night. He could see nothing out of it. Even if he could, the staging grounds of the Legio Metalica would not have been visible. His Iron Skulls had a base on the outskirts of Infernus many kilometres to the west. He hadn’t had sight of Steel Hammer for three days now. The absence of connection to the Imperator-class Emperor Titan was an acute spiritual pain and growing weakness, like a slow loss of vitae. The implants at the base of his skull had no surface feeling, yet he experienced a phantom lack. That was a distress he expected, though. It began whenever he uncoupled from Steel Hammer. Something more had jolted him to consciousness. His frame tingled with a sense-memory of pain and an anticipation of disaster.

He moved to the footlocker beside the bed. He had no choice but to accept the overlord’s hospitality. That did not mean he had to indulge in the decadence of too many members of Armageddon’s ruling class. He would not insult his uniform by placing it in the chamber’s armoire. It was a bronze monolith, its size dictated, as far as Mannheim could tell, by the need to support the heraldry of both the von Strabs and the von Kierskas. The more Mannheim had to do with the nobility, the more disgusted he became, and the more fervently he clung to his faith in the Imperium’s structure. The chain of command and the oaths that held it together were stronger than the unworthy leaders who weakened individual links. Mannheim had no respect for von Strab, but he would give his life for the order that dictated he obey the overlord’s commands. The Emperor was at the top of that order. Mannheim would rip out his implants before he challenged a state of being dictated by the Father of Mankind.

He opened the footlocker and began to dress. The unease of his awakening refused to fade. It lay over his thoughts like a slick of promethium. He could not ignore it. So he would seek clarity. There was someone he could consult.

He wondered if her sleep had been as broken as his.

3. Yarrick

The librarium was a few dozen levels down from the peak of a spire just to the south of the one housing the overlord’s and governor’s residences. It was still above the thick of the hive’s population cauldron, though there was little of the luxury here that surrounded von Strab. The librarium was clean enough, but its air was stale with neglect. The shelves had grown shabby with age, the rockcrete floor webbed with hairline cracks, and the stacks of volumes and scrolls smelled musty. It was not a place many went. This was not surprising. Armageddon was not a planet where life was conducive to study, and this librarium was not connected to any of the major chapels in the hive. It was almost forgotten.

Meeting here felt clandestine. That worried me. It had since the morning, when Brenken had found me and asked me to attend the gathering.

I was greeted at the door by a scribe as faded and mildewed as his archive. He didn’t speak. He bowed, gestured down the main aisle for me to proceed, then withdrew into the shadows.

The others were waiting for me in the small rotunda at the centre of the librarium. With Brenken were Kurtiz Mannheim and a woman I had not met before. Her red robes, trimmed in yellow, white and black, declared her service to the Legio Metalica. She was a psyker, with a serpent coil of mechadendrites around the back of her skull. The use of her powers had withered her physical form. Her skin was tight against her bones, thin, brittle, a translucent yellow. Her eyes glittered with the intensity of her vision. She sat at a small reading table just behind the two officers.

Mannheim nodded in greeting. ‘Thank you for meeting us, commissar,’ he said. ‘Colonel Brenken spoke to me of your concerns.’

‘She said you share them.’

‘I do. Especially after last night.’

‘What happened?’

Mannheim turned to the psyker. ‘This is Scholar Arcanum Konev. I consulted her after I experienced…’ He searched for the words, then admitted, ‘I don’t know what I experienced.’

‘The tempest in the immaterium is growing worse,’ Konev said. Her voice rasped like sand over bones. ‘The ripples are reaching many.’

‘I asked Scholar Konev to draw from the Emperor’s Tarot,’ Mannheim said.

‘And?’

‘The Great Hoste, reversed,’ Konev recited, hoarse tones taking on the rhythms of a chant. ‘The Despoiler, reversed. The Shattered World.’

I felt the sickening tightness in my chest of the worst being confirmed. I was no psyker, and I was no reader of the Tarot. But I had a rudimentary knowledge of the cards, and I could tell that what Konev had read was nothing good.

‘A great enemy is coming,’ she said. ‘His forces are overwhelming. This is a foe such as the Imperium has rarely seen. What lies in his path will be smashed, and we are in his path.’

Konev would be choosing her words carefully. A great enemy, she had said. Not the Great Enemy. The dark forces from the Eye of Terror were not on the march, then, at least not here. But that was little comfort.

‘Can this still be orks we’re talking about?’ Brenken asked. ‘Their threat isn’t exactly rare.’

‘This one must be,’ I said. ‘We must never underestimate the orks. There’s a good reason we have been forced to fight them on so many fronts: they are very successful in spreading their plague. But in this case…’

‘Would you tell me what you told the overlord?’ Mannheim asked. And after I had done so, he said, ‘If you’re right that we face a greenskin threat, then it must be incredible for it to be of an order to generate this reading.’

‘The warp storm is part of this,’ I said. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘A worrying conjunction,’ Mannheim admitted.

‘What is our course of action, then?’ Brenken asked. ‘Other than to increase our level of preparedness.’

The question fell into a silence leaden with our own powerlessness. The threat was still too vague. There were no countermeasures to take against it.

Mannheim sighed. ‘Scholar Konev and I will speak with von Strab. Perhaps this reading, and a reframing of Commissar Yarrick’s points, will convince him at least to build up the defensive posture of the hives.’

‘Warn the other senior officers too,’ I said. ‘Before the overlord explicitly forbids doing so. And what about the Navy?’

‘I have an acquaintance with Admiral Isakov,’ Mannheim said. ‘I’m sure the warp storm is already a point of concern for him. I’ll speak with him.’

The actions felt inadequate, but I could not see much else to be done at this point. ‘We should also send out an alert beyond the system,’ I said. ‘If the warp storm grows much worse, we will be cut off from the rest of the Imperium. If no one thinks to look this way during that period…’ I left the thought unfinished.

Mannheim nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘There is something else that concerns me,’ I said. ‘Why did we meet here?’

‘For discretion,’ said Brenken. She gave me an apologetic shrug. ‘Word of how you stand in von Strab’s eyes has spread quickly.’

‘I imagine he made sure of that.’

‘If the overlord knows we’ve had this conversation, he is less likely to listen to Princeps Mannheim.’

‘Of course.’ To Mannheim and Konev, I said, ‘I wish you luck. I hope my toxicity doesn’t prevent your message from being heard.’

The precautions were futile. Von Strab had no more time for Mannheim’s warning than he did for mine. I sought out Brenken in the barracks of the 252nd later in the afternoon. The regiment was preparing for the march through the streets of Infernus the following day as part of the observance of the Emperor’s Ascension. I found Brenken on the parade grounds, inspecting the companies. The losses on Basquit were already being filled out with new recruits. Brenken spotted me at the entrance to the barracks. The slight shake of the head she gave me told me what I needed to know.

Disgusted, I left the barracks, plunging into the streets of Infernus. I pushed my way through the crowds. The streets at ground level were fifty metres wide, and too narrow for the flow of foot traffic. Vehicles moved at a crawl. On either side, the monolithic slabs of manufactoria rose for hundreds of metres. The air was grey with smoke and exhaust. Tomorrow, this and other major thoroughfares would be cleared for the marches and religious processions. All the quadrants of Armageddon’s hives would pause in their industry to observe the solemn day. This was true of even some regions of the underhive. Von Strab’s enforcement of the Feast, however, had more to do with emphasising his authority than his piety, such as it was.

I pushed my way forward, walking with energy but no direction. I was trying to burn off frustration. Inaction before a threat was unacceptable, yet it was the position in which I found myself. My vision was filled with the smug features of von Strab. I barely saw where I was going. It was several minutes before I realised that something had changed in the foot traffic. More and more people were moving in the same direction. Over the snarl of vehicle engines and the deeper rumbles from within the manufactoria walls came the rising murmur of distress and wonder.

I snapped to alertness. My hand brushed my holster, but there were no sounds of combat. And the people were heading towards the source of the disturbance, not fleeing it. I let myself be carried by the current of bodies.

Whatever the rumour was, it had travelled far, wide and quickly. Hours passed. The collective anxiety around me intensified. People were swept up in anticipation and ignorance. The perpetual twilight of the lower streets of Infernus was darkening towards real night when I reached the square outside the Cathedral of Infinite Obeisance. It was one of the principal houses of worship in Infernus. It was gigantic, its portico alone almost half the height of the flanking manufactoria. Two Warhound Titans could have passed side by side through the open doors. The massive flying buttresses appeared to have shouldered aside the manufactoria to make room for the great bulk of the cathedral.

The people flowed through the doors. The volume of the wailing and prayers I heard coming from inside could not be explained solely by the acoustics of the blackened stone.

I moved forward with the crowd. Once past the threshold, it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the deeper gloom, and it was still another half hour before I had gone far enough into the cavern of the nave to see the cause of the anguish. Behind the altar was an immense pict screen, worthy of a battleship’s oculus. It had been erected as part of von Strab’s determination to have all of Armageddon celebrate as one on the following day. All of the major chapels would be linked by vox, and the congregations in the pews and in the streets would see their fellow celebrants by pict feed.

The screen was active now, a day early. It showed a single exterior view, the colossal statue of the Emperor in Hive Helsreach.

The statue was weeping blood.

Crimson streaks ran from the corners of both eyes and down the noble visage. As I watched, a thick tear formed then trickled down from the right eye. It hung suspended for a moment from the statue’s lower jaw before falling into space. The crowd gasped when it dropped, and the wailing surged once more.

I approached the screen, mesmerised. When I was level with the altar, a voice at my left shoulder said, ‘Overlord von Strab will ignore this omen too. You know he will.’

I turned my head, tearing my eyes away from the pict feed. Canoness Errant Setheno stood beside the altar, towering over the shuffling crowd. The people flowed around her like a stream parted by a pillar. When I first encountered her, on Mistral, she had been a Sister Superior of the Order of the Piercing Thorn. We had both changed much since then. Her power armour was the most visible alteration. Once black, wrapped in a fine, rising spiral of red, for some time now it had been the grey of tombs. Her cape was grey too, instead of its former gold. There was no longer an Order of the Piercing Thorn. All trace of it, down to the heraldry on her armour, had been expunged. By her command, and at her hand.

The change in the armour, though striking to the few of us who had known her since those early days, was a surface transformation. The most profound alteration was in her face. Her eyes had been an unnerving, uniform gold since our struggle against the daemon Ghalshannha on Mistral. That was the first of the deep changes. They had continued, slowly, but inexorably, reaching their climax in the wake of the tragedy of the Piercing Thorn. Her face had been blasted of emotion as completely as her armour had been of colour. It was immovable as stone, cold as the void. Instead of altering her features, time and darkest experience had hardened them, like metal folded and hammered and refolded in a forge of war. There was more forgiveness in the faces of the sculpted saints in the cathedral.

Setheno was a powerful ally in combat. But I could not say her presence was welcome. It was yet another omen of disaster. After the destruction of the Piercing Thorn, she had become the canoness without an order. I wasn’t sure if the journey she had embarked upon was penitence or a crusade. Perhaps both. The experience was certainly a penitential one for those who crossed her path, or that of her ship, the Cobra-class destroyer Act of Clarity.

‘Canoness,’ I said. ‘I hesitate to ask what brings you here.’

She watched the statue weep. ‘Signs and portents,’ she said. ‘A disturbing reading of the Emperor’s Tarot aboard my ship, among others.’

‘We have had one here, too. When did you arrive?’

‘At dawn. I was very nearly lost in the immaterium.’

‘The storm is worse, then.’

‘No vessels have translated in-system after mine.’

‘So we are cut off.’ I hoped Mannheim’s alert had been sent in time. ‘You have met with Overlord von Strab?’ I asked.

‘Briefly. He was not receptive to what I had to say.’

Von Strab’s will was impressive. I could think of very few individuals capable of being dismissive of Setheno. I cursed. ‘You’re right. He will find a way to rationalise the omen of these tears.’

‘It may be that the Emperor weeps because of von Strab’s intransigence.’

I sighed. ‘I’ve been unable to think what our course of action must be.’

‘If anyone could find a solution, commissar, it would be you. You are unable because there is none. Overlord von Strab is immovable. What is coming is inevitable. We cannot stop it. All we can control is how we respond when the enemy arrives. But the first move belongs to the foe.’

I thought about the chant I had heard on Basquit. Ghazghkull, Ghazghkull, Ghazghkull. Then, the word had meaning only for the orks. Now my dread was that it would soon have terrible meaning for the Imperium. We had lost the initiative. I knew this with the certainty of faith. I met Setheno’s cold, golden stare and said, ‘Then we must pray that the first move is not the decisive one.’

1. Isakov

The battleship Reach of Judgement was a cathedral of war. Over ten thousand metres long, and two thousand abeam, it may have been more the size of a city, even supporting its own chapel rising from the stern end of the superstructure. And yet, it was a cathedral. Every weapons battery, every Fury interceptor, Shark assault boat and Starhawk bomber in its launch bays, every member of its crew of one hundred and fifty thousand, even every bulkhead and rivet – they made up a whole whose immensity was devoted to a single, sublime act of worship: war in the Emperor’s name. Along its length, above each gun port, statues of saints stood guard, each thirty metres high. Its great arches and its stained armourglass were one with the cannons. No city could boast such unity of force and purpose. It was the massive embodiment of sacred war.

It also had the gravitational force of command. The cruisers and escorts that made up the battle fleet moved in concert with it. Together they were a collective fist that could smash civilisations to ash. The Reach of Judgement was a ponderous vessel. It was slow to turn and to accelerate. But once it was set on its course, nothing could stop it. For Admiral Jakob Isakov, his vessel travelled along the straight line of the Emperor’s will.

And now, at the centre of the fleet, it manoeuvred to create an impassable barrier against the enemy heading for Armageddon.

On the bridge of the Judgement, Isakov sat on the command throne in an elevated pulpit set against a massive pillar in the the rear of the bridge. The pillar rose to meet the point of the Gothic vault forty metres above. Levels upon levels of work stations surrounded the deck in arched galleries. Over a thousand crewmembers and servitors powered the nerve centre of the battleship.

‘Mistress of the Augur,’ Isakov said, ‘what are the readings?’

‘Increasingly unreliable, sir,’ Eleza Haack answered. ‘But the displacement is unmistakeable and growing.’

‘Can you extrapolate its size?’

‘It is massive. We can say nothing more precise.’

‘Very well. Orders to the fleet: maintain formation. Weapons free. As we have no information of an Imperial force approaching the Armageddon System, our visitors are presumed hostile. When they translate, open fire.’ He thought for a moment, then said, ‘Vox, send a message to Princeps Mannheim. Tell him he was right.’

2. Yarrick

Mannheim turned from the vox operator to me. ‘The credit is yours, commissar.’

I shook my head. ‘The effort was collective. And there is no credit to be had before the enemy is stopped.’

We had been in the augur station of Infernus’s spaceport, at the western edge of the hive, since before dawn. It was a circular space occupying the peak of a tower overlooking the landing pads. The stained glass of the lower floors here gave way to an armourglass dome sprouting antennae like spines. The tower was far from the tallest in the hive, but the transmissions were received through the sludge of cloud cover clearly enough. That was more than could be said for astropathic messages. The choir of Infernus was located in the midpoint of the tower. I had stopped there before joining Mannheim and Setheno in the station. They had attempted to send the Princeps’ message. Master of the Choir Genest was doubtful about their success. What little they were still receiving was so fragmented and distorted by the storm that it caused psychic wounds without being interpretable. Genest looked worn, even by the withered standards of an astropath. His face was wary too, as if he guessed that he was being used to go behind von Strab’s back, and very much hoped not to have confirmed that suspicion.

My presence in the augur complex was not official. I was there thanks to Mannheim’s invitation and under the auspices of Setheno’s unofficial but powerful authority. It would take the direct intervention of the overlord to counter any demand she made.

And while we waited for Isakov to confront the enemy, each of his messages taking hours to reach us from the edge of the system, the Feast of the Emperor’s Ascension was under way across Armageddon. I could guess with what fervour and solemnity the rites were being observed this year, as the statue in Helsreach continued to weep blood. While the processions and prayers filled the streets and chapels of the hives under constant reminders of the overlord’s beneficence and vigilant eye, von Strab was using one of the most sacred traditions of the Feast to his own benefit. It is said false judgements are impossible on this day. The practical result of this belief is the irreversibility of pronouncements made during the Feast. My faith in the Emperor is absolute, but I have seen too many crimes committed in his name. Von Strab used the tradition of infallible justice to settle scores real and imagined. His grip on the planet was so strong it could hardly be consolidated even further. But he still used the day to underscore the futility of challenging him.

At least he was busy. His attention elsewhere, we had some room to act.

The vox operator reported that the fleet had completed its manoeuvres. It was in position at the Mandeville point.

I became conscious of Setheno’s gaze. ‘You don’t believe this will be enough, do you?’

‘No. Do you?’

She shook her head. To Mannheim she said, ‘Have you long been acquainted with Admiral Isakov?’

‘I consider him a friend.’

‘Then I am sorry.’

‘He isn’t lost yet,’ Mannheim said, though there was little hope in his voice.

Setheno didn’t answer. I watched the banks of augur stations. I willed the news to reach us faster.

Though I dreaded what it would be.

3. Isakov

In the Reach of Judgement’s great oculus, Isakov saw the void tear. The wound was greater than any he had ever seen. No single ship could cause such a rift. No fleet would need one. It slashed across the real space, jagged and blazing with the blood of the materium. The flesh of the void peeled back, and the raging non-light and anti-colours of the warp burst across the blockade. And still the wound widened.

Isakov winced. He clutched the arms of the throne, his fingers whitening with tension. Cries shook the bridge as a wave of pain crashed through it. It was a torment of the soul, a response to a greater agony. The warp itself was screaming, as if the thing that had traversed it wounded even that infernal realm, and must be expelled. There was a final blast, a final shriek of tortured materium and warp, and the enemy had arrived.

The space hulk was immense. A moon had appeared before the fleet, dwarfing the warships. It was a world of twisted metal, forged of uncountable vessels. Freighters, colony ships, cruisers and transports had been fused into a mass that was graveyard and fist. The ships were barely recognisable, but portions of superstructure and shattered bows emerged from the conglomeration, fragments of identity drowning in the mass. The hulk looked as if a great fleet had been caught in the grip of a terrible gravitational force, and the moment of collision had been frozen in time. The surface of the misshapen behemoth was a patchwork of mountain ranges and canyons, all of them metal. The ship carcasses had been twisted by the warp into melted, writhing shapes. But the hulk itself was not dead. Furious energy boiled out of canyons. New constructions, crude but indestructible, pushed upwards between the iron ruins. Barbaric icons with snarling, fanged visages thousands of metres across gaped in hunger at the Imperial fleet. It was a thing of creative destruction, all of its grand deaths transformed by a savage vitality.

‘Orks!’ someone called out.

‘Orks…’ Isakov muttered, transfixed by the icons. He had never seen a hulk like this. More than the size chilled his blood. In those icons, he saw signs of an ambition and ability many orders of magnitude beyond what he knew of the greenskins. He had the unshakeable conviction that these orks had not just traversed the warp, they had enjoyed it.

And now they came for Armageddon.

‘Uncatalogued space hulk detected,’ came the dead voice of a servitor slaved to a cogitator. ‘New designation to be assigned.’ There was a brief pause as the cogitator combed through databases and arrived at the correct nomenclature for the monster. ‘Space hulk designated Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus.’

Isakov grunted. So dry a name. So harmless. It was a serial number. It did not reflect the horror he saw closing in on the fleet.

Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus was so huge, Isakov did not realise at first how fast it was moving. There was a slight impression of increasing size, but it filled the void as if it were a planet. Then the tocsins blared, and the shouts came from stations across the width and height of the bridge. Calls of horrifying readings of mass, of dimensions, of speed, of proximity, of direction. The portents of doom.

‘Fire,’ Isakov roared. ‘Fire, by the Emperor!’

The order was unnecessary. The fleet was already acting on his prior command. Every forward-facing battery on every ship had opened up. A swarm of torpedoes streaked towards the hulk. Isakov listened to simultaneous countdowns. One marked the progress of the ordnance towards the enemy. The other tracked the shrinking gulf between the beast and the fleet.

Seconds to go before the shells struck. High explosives many metres long, hurled in such profusion that they would have gutted any capital ship. Kill it, Isakov willed. Kill it now, and I will rejoice at the consequences. The destruction of something so vast would take out much of the blockade too. Perhaps all of it. There would be no evading the cataclysm. But the sacrifice would be worth it.

‘Vox,’ he said, ‘remain in constant communication with Infernus. Let them know everything that happens.’

The cannon fire hit Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus. A few seconds later, so did the torpedoes. Hundreds of explosions peppered the surface. The holocaust that erupted was of a scale that beggared comprehension. The firestorms would have wiped great cities out of existence. Thousands upon thousands of tonnes of metal melted and vaporised. The bones of once-proud vessels spun off into the void, torn free of the space hulk’s gravity. This was not destruction: it was cataclysm. An entire Imperial Navy fleet had fired on a single target.

Some of the fires spread and kept burning. Others winked out. The space hulk kept coming.

The fleet kept up its barrage. The bridge of the Reach of Judgement shook with vibrations so deep they rang like thunder.

The space hulk reached the forward elements of the blockade: the Dictator-class cruiser Cardinal Borza and two frigates. There was no possibility of evasion. Isakov even saw the engines of the Borza flare brighter, Captain Hella von Berne turning the vessel into a five-thousand-metre battering ram. Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus hit the cruiser a few moments before the frigates. The Borza’s bow disintegrated. Its midsection broke in half. Its engines burned a moment longer, slamming the stern of the ship forward into its own immolation. The warp drives ruptured, and the void was torn again by the light of absolute destruction.

Isakov looked away from the oculus, dazzled, as the flare reached into the bridge, stabbing eyes and soul. ‘Full power to forward shields!’ he called, and braced for the shockwave. It came, and there was another flare, this time from the Reach of Judgement’s void shields. They stood for a full second against the Cardinal Borza’s death cry. Then they collapsed, their failure cascading back along the length of the battleship. The Judgement shook like a city in an earthquake. A chorus of flat servitor voices began reciting damage reports. Something exploded in the corridor leading off the main doors to the bridge. Isakov smelled smoke, and the sharp jab to the nose of ozone.

And the fleet kept firing. Shells and torpedoes were launched into the searing white curtain of a plasma and warp drive fireball. That anything could survive being at the centre of the cruiser’s destruction seemed impossible, but the barrage must continue until either the enemy or the last hope was no more.

The light faded. The space hulk stormed through fire and death. It was shrouded by flame, a comet of fire. It was shedding fragments kilometres long. The Borza had inflicted massive damage, but the blow was meaningless. The hulk was too huge. Nothing short of a planetary mass would halt its journey.

Seconds had passed since the initial impact between the hulk and the blockade. Seconds remained before the end. Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus filled the oculus. This close, it was doom the size of a world.

There was nothing left to try. There could be no victory. There could be no flight. All that remained was the gesture, to seek honour in death, and curse the monster with a new name.

‘Full ahead!’ Isakov ordered. Von Berne had shown the way. Isakov and his hundreds of thousands under his command would shed more ork blood as their own boiled into the void. ‘Vox, tell Armageddon. Tell them the Claw of Desolation reaches for them. Tell them to fight hard. In the name of the Emperor.’

Then he stared at his killer as if his hate itself could stop it. Through smoke and flame, he saw its surface draw near. A graveyard with tombstones the size of hive spires rushed forward to surround his ship.

He saw Death.

Kilometres distant from the bridge, the bow of the Judgement struck the ruined superstructure of an embedded colony ship. The two vessels melded in a storm of wreckage. Then the great explosions began.

Isakov saw the end come in a triumph of fire. The moment before agony was full of awe. But his final thought was bitter, because the sublime destruction meant nothing.

Click here to buy Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2015.
This eBook edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS UK.

Cover illustration by Phroilan Gardner.

Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon, 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: 978-1-78251-700-9

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.