Contents

Cover

The Dust That Remains – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

The Dust That Remains

J. H. Archer

They died, all of them, fifteen years ago. They die, all of them, right now. They will die, all of them, night after night after night.

There, in the breach, holding the reliquary, our backs against the cliffside, the heathens stalking their way up the shore, turning the sand to glass under their feet. My surgical tools blunt with use. My robes, once white, now the colour of sanctifying wine.

I see Sisters killed, friends I’ve known since my days at the Schola Progenium. Sister Solifa, her head turned into a rose bloom with a direct bolter round. Sister Pulsifer, gutted whilst bringing down her foe. Canoness Methusela, engulfed in holy flame, laughing at her righteous destruction until the end.

And in my hands, her.

A conscript, fresh out of training, her flak armour no more protection than thin plastek sheeting against a tank shell. Shards of it are in her chest, a sucking wound, and I can see that she’s barely able to breathe. Her left lung has collapsed. Blood flows freely from her neck. She tries to say something, but cannot. I do everything I can to save her. Everything. I apply all of my skill, my learning, my pure will into saving her, but it is not enough.

The world around me is dying.

They break through our lines. I look into the eyes of the enemy and see only darkness. I look down, and see the light fading. Her blood runs through my hands. I hold her as she passes.

Then came the darkness. Then comes the darkness. And the darkness will come.

I break out of my reverie to the sound of engines.

For a moment I suspect it to be thunder, ripping through the night air, accentuating the beats between the ever-present forks of lightning. But then I see it: A troop carrier descending through the storm and landing on the blasted moorland that lies before the compound. Soon the high, iron-wrought gates open and in trudge a hundred shapes, huddled together like pilgrims, clutching cloaks and jackets tightly.

I expect soldiers. Wounded soldiers, certainly, tired and stretched thin, the mud and dust from a hundred worlds still caked to their boots. What I am given instead are things as hollow as shell casings. They shuffle through in patrol formation, men and women whip-thin, cheekbones protruding, eyes darting along the rooftops and squinting at the floodlights, their hands grasping for weapons that are no longer there. They are bloodied, unwashed. I can see my medics attempt to hide their disgust. They greet the troopers at arm’s length, masks and gloves firmly on, assisting the ragged party out of the lashing rain. The Commissariat guards don’t even give the troopers that courtesy, clenching their hands around the weapons that hang by their sides, turning to put their backs to the prevailing gale, or barking orders to speed up the disembarkation.

The Guardsmen notice the change, I’m sure. A few of them even refuse to walk further, herded in as they are, noticing the reactions they inspire in others, but thankfully their protests don’t last long and they are pushed in from behind by the veterans still coy enough to know what will happen if they are uncooperative.

I stand on the second floor of the hospice, watching this happen, taking my notes as per usual, when one of the troopers stops in his tracks and looks up in my direction. Dark hair, and darker eyes, dried blood on his cheeks. He smiles at me. Just a simple smile of relief, I think, to be back amongst the righteous, rivulets of rainwater running down his face, washing off some of the filth. One of the Commissariat guards pushes him forwards, and the unexpected momentum sends him tumbling to the ground, and he is lost to me in the crowd.

‘They’re not much to look at, are they, Sister?’

I feel her presence behind me, looming, like the knowledge of a sheer drop close by as you walk in darkness. She’s a giant, almost a foot taller than me, encased in battle plate that seems to be welded together. At her hip, an ancient plasma pistol. On her back, a long power sword. On her face, a mask of perfect white porcelain. She begins to cough, rasping, rattling and dry, but her bio-harness hisses as some chem is injected directly into her bloodstream, and she recovers.

‘They’ll do, inquisitor,’ I say.

‘Of course they’ll do. They’ve already been officially written off as missing in action. A hundred Guardsmen is nothing. It’s as simple as moving a decimal point in a Munitorum ledger.’

‘And if they are infected, as the report suggests?’

‘Then we dig a hundred shallow graves, and we both agree that what happened here never did.’

I gather the medicae staff for a briefing.

The facility is sterile, white and untouched, like the hessian shift of a saint. I am standing in the middle of ward one, on the bottom floor, with rows of steel beds flanking me on either side. In a semicircle in the centre of the space are thirty pale faces in pure white medicae robes. They’re shifting about uneasily on their feet, looking to me for understanding.

‘One hundred days,’ I say. ‘We have one hundred days to see these troopers fit for duty. They’ve just come directly from a holding camp, and before that the front line. They’ll be on edge and possibly violent, so expect resistance, both physical and in general attitude. You must wear your protective raiments at all times.’

I hand out a list of symptoms.

‘If at any point you begin to feel any one of these, or you believe that anyone might be suffering from the same, you must report it immediately. Any serious infractions, consult a member of the Commissariat guard. Understood?’

‘Yes, Hospitaller Isolde,’ comes the reply.

‘Good. Get to it.’

Click here to buy The Dust That Remains.

A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2023 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

The Dust That Remains © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2023. The Dust That Remains, 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: 978-1-80407-525-8

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

the purchaser of a Black Library e-book product (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase a Black Library e-book (“e-book”). 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.

* 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.