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Voidscarred – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

ONE

Eluadhri, beautiful Eluadhri, the Lady of the Waters. A maiden world, seeded with life before the Fall, now grown into grand maturity. Her oceans rolled vast and cold and deep, supporting great blooms and shoals, from the moon algae that sparkled and glowed at night to the mighty kelp-dragons that wound their sinuous bodies around the trunks of the enormous deeptrees. The warm, sun-kissed shallows had bred species by the thousand, each brighter than the last. And the lakes; oh, the lakes! Great iridescent jewels capable of piercing the eye and the heart in equal measure, when caught by the young, vibrant sun. Eluadhri was a picture of perfection, proof that even in a cruel, destructive galaxy there was still a place for an unblemished mote of wonder.

So long as it could be kept free from pests.

Myrin Stormdawn stood with his eyes closed in the transport pod of his Falcon. She was Veil of Night, which could also be rendered as Morning Mist, depending on tone and intention. Even now, her armaments were extinguishing lives, such as they were. In mere moments, as the shroud of smoke cleared, she would bring a ferocious new dawn. Myrin smiled and fingered the hilt of his void sabre. This duty was one he had undertaken because no one else, it seemed, cared about maiden worlds like these. He would never abandon the freedom of the void for a dirtbound existence, but they must be kept pristine for those of the aeldari as might require them.

However, just because something was a duty did not mean it could not be invigorating. Enjoyable, even. The craftworlds might not agree, but had he and they seen eye to eye then he might still be there now, and Myrin Stormdawn would not have swapped this life for anything.

He adjusted his stance minutely as he felt Veil of Night begin to spin, holding himself steady despite centrifugal forces that would have sent one of the lesser species tumbling clumsily. He was ready at the moment that the doors slid aside, and leaped through them like an apex predator descending upon its quarry, his Bladesworn at his back.

The mon-keigh had been here for less time than it took for Eluadhri to swing around her sun once, and already they had brought a blight down upon her. Their hideous, blocky structures of unnatural metal and stone composites squatted in artificial clearings formed by butchery of the forest, and they had gouged great holes in her crust in search of the raw minerals from which they fashioned their crude weaponry and tools. Had they come here and made some attempt to live in harmony with the planet then they would still have had to be removed, but Myrin might have offered them an opportunity to leave of their own accord first, even though he knew the offer would almost certainly not be accepted. However, there could be no compromise with despoilers such as these.

He and his Starsplinters would slit the humans’ throats and let their souls fall into the maws of whatever gods waited to catch them, and their bodies would be left to decay – a small reimbursement for what they had taken from the world. There were few true warriors here; he had known that before he ordered the attack, and was unconcerned by it. If the humans cared not for their own wellbeing, Myrin Stormdawn certainly would not either.

His boots touched the ground – soft dirt, yielding, so unlike the firm deck plates of the ships he now called home – and he slew his first human of the day a moment later, piercing the fragile skin of its throat with the merest flick of his void sabre’s point. The creature had been staring up at Veil of Night in fear, and had barely registered that superior beings were emerging from the vehicle, let alone raised its weapon, before its life was ended. The anathematic crystal interlaced through Myrin’s weapon hummed in delight at its first taste of blood, and the human fell to its knees as the wound immediately began to darken. The void sabre was not an envenomed weapon in the classical sense, in that no toxin coated the blade, but its very nature was inimical to life.

The first death took but a moment. Myrin slew two more of the mon-keigh within a second, his sabre whipping back and forth before either of them could bring their clumsy weapons to bear. His Bladesworn took down the rest of the first squad, and then they were sprinting into the very teeth of the humans’ woefully imprecise las-fire.

The mining outpost had already been hit hard by the Starsplinters’ vehicles – Myrin had sent Falcons, Hornets, and Nightwings screaming down from the skies, easily evading the few hardpoint defences before disabling them with focused blasts from pulse lasers and bright lances. Like insects whose nest had been damaged, the humans came swarming out in the vain hope that their handheld weapons could succeed where the tools specifically created for the task had already failed.

This was where Myrin and his warriors came in. Other commanders might have turned their starships’ weapons upon the colony from orbit, and trusted that any humans who survived the titanic blasts would soon fall victim to their own ineptitude once deprived of their artificial shelter. After all, even maiden worlds had predators – the ebb and flow of life and death was a crucial balance. One species of plant could not strangle its competitors, because it would be grazed upon; the grazers could not strip the land bare, because they were preyed upon in turn; and so it went, around and around, each organism occupying its niche in the web of life.

Humans had no place here, and Myrin would not leave Eluadhri to deal with them herself; she had already suffered enough at their hands. Myrin would ensure that each and every one of the invaders died, the infestation rooted out and cleansed, since humans were second only to orks for their stubbornness. Although individually weak, as a collective they showed an irritating tenacity if you left any alive, so his warriors poured from Falcons and Venoms, Wave Serpents and Vampire Raiders, and dropped from the skies on jet packs, bringing overdue death.

‘No prisoners,’ he stated, messenger waves bearing his words to the ears and minds of his warriors. He casually stepped aside from the projectile of a primitive percussive weapon aimed at point-blank range, and ran the human in question through with his sabre. ‘Let the Dark Kin find their own playthings.’

A new wave of humans charged him, their blunt, plain features easy to read despite their alien nature. They were gripped by fear and desperation, well aware that their actions were, in all likelihood, futile, but hoping that some fluke of fate might turn proceedings in their favour. Their apparent commander, marked out by a higher quality of equipment, was in amongst them – not in the first wave, but it was at least not hanging back and cowering in fear while sending its underlings to their death. Myrin could grudgingly respect the humans’ choice of shaky courage over shivering cowardice, even while he scoffed at their lack of intellect. Still, he reflected as he swayed away from a clumsy strike and disembowelled the offending creature, at least they were obliging enough to present themselves to him and his warriors, instead of making him root around the depths of their warren.

The world trembled slightly, just to Myrin’s left and slightly behind him. There was no noise, no flash of light, nothing that his physical senses could detect. It was felt on a far deeper level, the faintest sensation of something sucking at his soul. Then a black-clad shape appeared in front of him, and a human fell as twin gouts of blood erupted from parallel cuts across its torso. The shape flickered and disappeared, reappeared again further away, and another human died, its heart pierced by a pair of blades that were gone again in a moment. The next one’s throat was opened, and now the clumsy charge was failing as the mon-keigh realised that something was cutting them apart from within.

Myrin sighed, raised his fusion pistol, and fired. The human commander didn’t even have time to scream. Most of its upper body was flash-blasted away into nothingness, and it was already slumping backwards to the ground by the time a pair of knives scythed through where its head had been only a moment before.

‘You forget yourself, Xela,’ Myrin said sharply. ‘That kill was mine.’

Xela Flickerstep turned to look at him, her eyes sharp above her half-mask. The shade runner’s blink pack allowed her to make tiny warp jumps – only a few paces at a time, but that was worth miles in combat. She spun her blades through her fingers and tossed her head derisively.

‘You said no prisoners,’ the former wych replied. ‘What does it matter who kills whom?’

‘What matters is what I say matters, as always,’ Myrin said, casually disintegrating another human with his pistol as he strode towards her. ‘What use to me is a first mate who does not understand that?’

Xela blinked out of existence for a moment, then reappeared behind a human who had been charging her from behind, and severed its spine with a single blow. Her eyes took on a calculating, hungry expression as she refocused on Myrin.

‘And will I be punished for my inattention later, captain?’

Myrin snorted. ‘Once more, you show an inability to predict my desires.’ He blocked a blow from a human’s weapon without looking, and with sufficient force to cause the wretch to drop the offending implement, then ripped his sabre up its front. Primitive armour parted along with cloth, and the human fell backwards to the ground while Myrin’s weapon sang its quiet song of joy. Some considered void sabres to be cursed, but Myrin knew better. They were simply not meant to be handled by those of insufficient will; if the corsair life demanded anything of an aeldari, it was strength of will.

Taranath danced past, chuckling as his twin pistols hissed death. He used them almost as a duellist might use their weapons, taking off a hand, a foot, incapacitating his enemy before delivering the kill under the chin, or into the side of the neck or the chest cavity. Issarel, the second of Myrin’s Bladesworn, was a duellist of a more traditional sort, wielding their twin powerblades in shining, precise arcs. Their kills were functional – as opposed to those of Xela, who had perfected her skills in the arenas of Commorragh, where death was almost a disappointment without an accompanying show – but no less effective. Jhanandra, more prosaic still, simply threw a plasma grenade with a flick of her wrist. The explosive detonated, burning the last three humans alive where they stood.

‘Are we done here?’ she asked, shouldering her shuriken rifle and looking around pointedly. Myrin surveyed the scene. His warriors had quickly overwhelmed the paltry resistance, and Eluadhri’s ground was being watered by the blood of those who had sought to ravage her.

‘We are done here,’ he confirmed, ‘but there is more work yet to do.’ He raised his sabre, and pointed at the main complex.

‘I want every room, ever tunnel, every crevice scoured. Leave none alive.’

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2025.
This eBook edition published in 2025 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.
Cover illustration by Christopher Cant.

Voidscarred © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2025. Voidscarred, 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: 978-1-83609-315-2

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.

For the Scriptorum Recaff Station. May our teeth remain forever safe.

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