Contents

Cover

Unearthed – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Unearthed

Rob Sanders

Taking his magnoculars, Kiefer took in a 360-degree sweep of the surrounding area. The once-lush fields that stretched for kilometres across the surface of Grendl’s World were now but dust and sand. Slender twisters made their way across migrating dunes, while swarms of off-world vermin jumped and flew alongside the Inquisitorial column in great buzzing clouds. With nothing left to eat, the alien scourge that the Alpha Legion, led by the Traitor Sisyphon Vail, had introduced to this planet had resorted to feasting on each other, turning Grendl’s World into an infested dustball, trapped in a grotesque cycle of rampant reproduction and cannibalism. Kiefer pulled his headscarf across his mouth as the Salamander laboured up a dune and through a cloud of chittering insects.

‘I have a return, interrogator,’ Ipluvian~461 told Kiefer, his modulated voice rising above the Salamander’s gunning engine. The calculus logi was interfaced with the vehicle’s multi-spectral surveyor station, which dominated one side of the command bay. ‘Long-range augurs show a large structure, four degrees south-south-east.’

‘Confessor,’ Kiefer said into his vox-bead. ‘Can you confirm?’

‘Stand by,’ the priest returned, his voice a warping crackle over the channel. High above the column, Kiefer had given orders for the Internecia to hold station and provide support with the cruiser’s instrumentation. ‘Shipmaster Fairuza tells me orbital pict captures confirm the structure as a freighter.’

The interrogator leant across the twin-linked heavy bolters of the Salamander’s turret and banged his fist on the top of the driver’s compartment. Hatches popped and Kiefer found himself looking down at the Salamander’s driver and gunner. Sitting in the nest of levers was a goggled Guardsman, Khoga – one of Captain Sartak’s Attilans. Next to him, his shoulder nestled against the stock of the forward heavy bolter, was Kiefer’s servant, Fenk.

‘Four degrees south-south-east,’ Kiefer called above the Salamander’s roaring power plant. He gestured with a flattened palm. As Khoga hauled at the levers, the vehicle’s tracks churned in the sand. The Salamander turned on the top of a dune, before bouncing down the slope. Within moments, Captain Sartak’s barked orders had his Rough Riders and the Molidor Ogryn Auxilia changing direction to follow the command vehicle.

As the Salamander chewed its way through the wasteland, Kiefer peered through his magnoculars. Before long, blinking through the haze of dust and swarms of alien vermin, Kiefer saw the half-buried outline of a vessel.

‘All stop,’ the interrogator said, banging on top of the driver’s compartment once more. As the Salamander jerked to a stop, the Attilans formed a column of horsemen behind. The ogryns, barely breaking a sweat, ran up beside them – the abhuman warriors were taller than the Rough Riders on their steeds.

‘Can you identify it?’ Kiefer asked Ipluvian~461. ‘What do the auspex scans say?’

Interfaced with the surveyor station, the construct didn’t immediately respond as it concentrated on processing the incoming data.

‘Come on, hurry it up,’ said the interrogator.

‘A small system ship,’ the calculus logi said finally. ‘A pocket freighter.’

‘Crashed?’

‘Landed,’ Ipluvian~461 reported. ‘No doubt abandoned after the infestation took. It appears to be nothing more than a derelict.’

‘Entrances?’ Kiefer asked.

‘The ship has been mostly buried in the migrating dunes. The main cargo hold, however, is open to the elements. Might I suggest that to be the easiest way in?’

Kiefer bit at his lip in thought. They were hunting for the Alpha Legion. His old master, Godefroy Pyramus, had been drawn into an ambush and killed, and the darkness of the open hold screamed trap at the interrogator.

‘Easy isn’t always easy,’ he told the construct.

‘Indeed, my lord,’ Ipluvian~461 said. Kiefer didn’t have to explain his caution to the construct.

‘I need two riders,’ Kiefer called across to Captain Sartak, who drew up on his steed. ‘For a circle of the structure.’

Sartak gestured in mock confusion at the interrogator. The captain could understand Imperial Gothic perfectly well, but liked to make a show for his men. Similarly, the Guardsmen also pretended not to speak any language other their own. The Attilans’ pride in their culture ran deep. Kiefer made several circular gestures with his arm then stabbed a finger towards the downed freighter. Ipluvian~461 translated the order into the Attilan dialect.

As two of Sartak’s best riders trotted off, creating separate dust trails, Kiefer launched Xerxes into the air. The interrogator had had Ipluvian~461 attach a vid-caster and a small auspex array to the bird’s body. Kiefer needed eyes on the top of the half-buried crashed freighter. As the Rough Riders circled the derelict ship in opposite directions, the psyber-eagle soared overhead. Kiefer listened for the bird’s call – any indication of movement or a living presence among the crumbling architecture of the ship. He heard nothing, however.

Click here to buy Unearthed.

A Black Library Publication

Published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Unearthed © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2016. Unearthed, 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: 978-1-78572-264-6

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.