Contents

Cover

Veil of Darkness – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Veil of Darkness

Nick Kyme

‘I am the Undying. I am doom incarnate…’

It towered over me, this monster of living metal. It wore a crown with a red gemstone, torcs banded its mechanised arms and an azure pectoral hung around its neck. These were royal trappings. Here I fought a king of the dead, a robotic anachronism of an old and conceited culture, full of darkest anima.

Necrons, they were called. Its regal status only spurred me on.

‘We are the slayers of kings!’ I declared, spitting the words in anger at the gilded monster before me.

We fought alone, the monster and I. None interfered. I had drawn only my sword. For my victory to have any meaning, this was how it had to be. Even terms, its crackling war-scythe matched against my venerable Tempest Blade. But in the end, it was not my sword that was found wanting…

After a savage duel, it cut me deeply. No foe had ever done that before. And with blood filling my mouth, I fell. I, Cato Sicarius, Master of the Watch, Knight Champion of Macragge, Grand Duke of Talassar and High Suzerain of Ultramar, fell.

And as the veil of darkness wrapped around me like a funerary shroud, I heard the monster’s words again…

‘I am doom.’

I came around coughing up amniotic fluid, spraying the inside of the revivification casket. I roared, thundering my fist against the glass, my muscles and nerves suddenly aflame.

‘Release me!’ I spat, half-choking.

Locking clamps around the casket disengaged, admitting me back to the world of the living. I arrived breathing hard, sitting in a half-capsule of briny, viscous liquid and murderously staring down my Apothecary.

‘Welcome back, brother-captain.’

Lathered in gelatinous filth, I scowled. ‘Venatio.’

My Apothecary had the good grace to nod.

He was wearing his full armour-plate, white to identify his vocation as a medic rather than the ubiquitous Ultramarine-blue of our Chapter, but he went without a helmet. An ageing veteran of my command squad, Venatio’s hair was fair, closely cropped, and he had dark green eyes that had seen too much of death.

It was dark in the apothecarion, shadows suggesting the shape of various machines and devices the Chapter medics employed in the service of preserving life. The air reeked of counterseptic and a fine mist clouded the floor. It was clean, cold; a desolate place. How many had come through these halls bloody and broken? How many had arrived and never left? Always too many.

I made to rise but Venatio lifted a gauntleted hand to stop me.

‘Don’t presume you can keep me from climbing out of this casket,’ I warned him.

The hand gesture became placatory. ‘Let me at least run a full bio-scan first.’

Venatio had the device in his other hand and was already conducting his test, so I endured the amniotic filth a little longer. When he was done, I refused his proffered hand and extricated myself without his help. My side ached. Once I was out of the casket and standing on the tiled floor, I looked down and saw why. An angry scar puckered my flesh from where the Undying’s war-scythe had cleaved me.

‘It’s remarkable you are even alive, let alone walking, brother-captain,’ the Apothecary said, consulting biometric data from his scanner.

‘I’ll do more than walk,’ I promised vengefully, but realised I had no knowledge of what had happened after I had collapsed. ‘What of Damnos? Were the Second victorious?’

Venatio’s already severe expression darkened, pinching together the age lines of his face.

‘After your defeat, Agrippen and Lord Tigurius rallied the men. But we had badly underestimated the enemy and were forced to evacuate. Damnos is lost.’ He lowered his voice. ‘So too Venerable Agrippen.’

I clenched my fist so hard that the knuckles cracked. It was a sparse chamber we occupied; much of the apothecarion’s equipment was situated at its periphery with only my amniotic casket within striking distance. I hit it hard, putting a fissure in the glass. Had I my Tempest Blade at hand, I might have cut it apart. Galling was not the word.

I was about to ask Venatio to tell me more when another voice from the shadows, a presence I hadn’t noticed in my recently revived state, interrupted.

‘I had to see it for myself…’

A son of Ultramar, the son of Ultramar, if some amongst the Chapter were to be believed, stepped into the light. He too was fully clad, his plumed helmet sitting in the crook of his left arm, a ceremonial gladius strapped to his left leg. Gilt-edged shoulder guards and breastplate shone in the lambent lumen-strip above us, and his war-plate was festooned with the laurels of his many years of vaunted service.

‘Severus.’ I bowed my head out of respect for the veteran, but his stern expression, hardened further by his scars and the platinum studs embedded in his bald forehead, suggested he came here with ill news.

‘Cato.’

I hated the fact he used my given name, though I knew he hated me for doing so first. We were rivals, he and I. Severus Agemman was my predecessor as Captain of the Second. He in turn succeeded Saul Invictus after the great hero fell at Macragge. Now he stood as Calgar’s right hand, and I beneath him. We were rivals because our war philosophy was very different. Agemman was a blunt but effective adherent to the Codex Astartes, whereas I interpreted our primarch’s teachings and was less predictable. Some have said reckless. Only Agemman has ever said so to my face.

He smiled, but it was a cold, pitiless gesture.

Out with it then.

‘I wish I could I report I was here merely to see the dead brought back to life…’ Agemman gestured to the formidable scar raking my side. The smile faded to the thin, hard line of his mouth. ‘But, I cannot. You are to stand before Lord Calgar. The Chapter Master would have knowledge of what happened on Damnos and why we returned to the empire in ignominious defeat.’

My eyes narrowed, but I held my temper. An argument here, now, with Venatio looking on, would serve no good purpose.

‘And am I to be held responsible for this defeat? I know that whilst I yet stood, the warriors of the Second were not routed.’

Agemman refused to be baited. He was rigid, and a pain in the arse for that.

‘You have six hours to prepare your testimony.’

Click here to buy Veil of Darkness.

A Black Library Publication

First published as a Space Marine Battles audio drama in Great Britain in 2013.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Paul Dainton.

Veil of Darkness © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Veil of Darkness, 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: 978-1-78572-771-9

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.