Ruinstorm Read online

  Backlist

  Book 1 – HORUS RISING

  Book 2 – FALSE GODS

  Book 3 – GALAXY IN FLAMES

  Book 4 – THE FLIGHT OF THE EISENSTEIN

  Book 5 – FULGRIM

  Book 6 – DESCENT OF ANGELS

  Book 7 – LEGION

  Book 8 – BATTLE FOR THE ABYSS

  Book 9 – MECHANICUM

  Book 10 – TALES OF HERESY

  Book 11 – FALLEN ANGELS

  Book 12 – A THOUSAND SONS

  Book 13 – NEMESIS

  Book 14 – THE FIRST HERETIC

  Book 15 – PROSPERO BURNS

  Book 16 – AGE OF DARKNESS

  Book 17 – THE OUTCAST DEAD

  Book 18 – DELIVERANCE LOST

  Book 19 – KNOW NO FEAR

  Book 20 – THE PRIMARCHS

  Book 21 – FEAR TO TREAD

  Book 22 – SHADOWS OF TREACHERY

  Book 23 – ANGEL EXTERMINATUS

  Book 24 – BETRAYER

  Book 25 – MARK OF CALTH

  Book 26 – VULKAN LIVES

  Book 27 – THE UNREMEMBERED EMPIRE

  Book 28 – SCARS

  Book 29 – VENGEFUL SPIRIT

  Book 30 – THE DAMNATION OF PYTHOS

  Book 31 – LEGACIES OF BETRAYAL

  Book 32 – DEATHFIRE

  Book 33 – WAR WITHOUT END

  Book 34 – PHAROS

  Book 35 – EYE OF TERRA

  Book 36 – THE PATH OF HEAVEN

  Book 37 – THE SILENT WAR

  Book 38 – ANGELS OF CALIBAN

  Book 39 – PRAETORIAN OF DORN

  Book 40 – CORAX

  Book 41 – THE MASTER OF MANKIND

  Book 42 – GARRO

  Book 43 – SHATTERED LEGIONS

  Book 44 – THE CRIMSON KING

  Book 45 – TALLARN

  More tales from the Horus Heresy...

  CYBERNETICA

  SONS OF THE FORGE

  WOLF KING

  PROMETHEAN SUN

  AURELIAN

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM

  THE CRIMSON FIST

  PRINCE OF CROWS

  DEATH AND DEFIANCE

  TALLARN: EXECUTIONER

  SCORCHED EARTH

  BLADES OF THE TRAITOR

  THE PURGE

  THE HONOURED

  THE UNBURDENED

  RAVENLORD

  Many of these titles are also available as abridged and unabridged audiobooks. Order the full range of Horus Heresy novels and audiobooks from blacklibrary.com

  Audio Dramas

  THE DARK KING & THE LIGHTNING TOWER

  RAVEN’S FLIGHT

  GARRO: OATH OF MOMENT

  GARRO: LEGION OF ONE

  BUTCHER’S NAILS

  GREY ANGEL

  GARRO: BURDEN OF DUTY

  GARRO: SWORD OF TRUTH

  THE SIGILLITE

  HONOUR TO THE DEAD

  WOLF HUNT

  HUNTER’S MOON

  THIEF OF REVELATIONS

  TEMPLAR

  ECHOES OF RUIN

  MASTER OF THE FIRST

  THE LONG NIGHT

  IRON CORPSES

  RAPTOR

  Download the full range of Horus Heresy audio dramas from blacklibrary.com

  Also available

  MACRAGGE’S HONOUR

  A Horus Heresy graphic novel

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  Part I

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Part II

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Part III

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Tallarn’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  The Horus Heresy

  It is a time of legend.

  The galaxy is in flames. The Emperor’s glorious vision for humanity is in ruins. His favoured son, Horus, has turned from his father’s light and embraced Chaos.

  His armies, the mighty and redoubtable Space Marines, are locked in a brutal civil war. Once, these ultimate warriors fought side by side as brothers, protecting the galaxy and bringing mankind back into the Emperor’s light. Now they are divided.

  Some remain loyal to the Emperor, whilst others have sided with the Warmaster. Pre-eminent amongst them, the leaders of their thousands-strong Legions are the primarchs. Magnificent, superhuman beings, they are the crowning achievement of the Emperor’s genetic science. Thrust into battle against one another, victory is uncertain for either side.

  Worlds are burning. At Isstvan V, Horus dealt a vicious blow and three loyal Legions were all but destroyed. War was begun, a conflict that will engulf all mankind in fire. Treachery and betrayal have usurped honour and nobility. Assassins lurk in every shadow. Armies are gathering. All must choose a side or die.

  Horus musters his armada, Terra itself the object of his wrath. Seated upon the Golden Throne, the Emperor waits for his wayward son to return. But his true enemy is Chaos, a primordial force that seeks to enslave mankind to its capricious whims.

  The screams of the innocent, the pleas of the righteous resound to the cruel laughter of Dark Gods. Suffering and damnation await all should the Emperor fail and the war be lost.

  The age of knowledge and enlightenment has ended.

  The Age of Darkness has begun.

  ~ Dramatis Personae ~

  Ultramarines

  Roboute Guilliman, Primarch

  Verus Caspean, Chapter Master of the First

  Titus Prayto, Librarian

  Turetia Altuzer, Shipmaster, Samothrace

  Drakus Gorod, Commander, Suzerain Invictus Bodyguard

  Iasus, Chapter Master of the 22nd, Destroyers

  Junixa Terrens, Vox-officer, Samothrace

  Nestor Lautenix, Lieutenant, Samothrace

  Hierax, Captain, Destroyers

  Lucretius CorvoCaptain, Glorious Nova

  Mnason, Destroyers legionary

  Teosos, Destroyers legionary

  Byzanus, Tech-priest

  Kletos, Destroyers legionary

  Aphovos, Sergeant, second squad, Destroyers

  Gorthia, Sergeant, third squad, Destroyers

  Antalcidas, Dreadnought, Destroyers

  Empion, Chapter Master of the Ninth

  Blood Angels

  Sanguinius, Primarch

  Carminus, Captain, temporary Fleet Master

  Raldoron, First Captain, Equerry to Sanguinius

  Mkani Kano, Librarian

  Meros, The Red Angel, Herald

  Varra Neverrus, Vox-officer, Red Tear

  Azkaellon, Captain, Sanguinary Guard

  Amit, Flesh Tearer, Fifth Company

  Jeran Mautus, Lieutenant, auspex officer, Red Tear

  Orexis, Sergeant

  Vahiel, Sergeant

  Da
rk Angels

  Lion El’Jonson, Primarch

  Stenius, Captain, Invincible Reason

  Holguin, Voted Lieutenant, Deathwing

  Lady Theralyn Fiana, Chief Navigator, Invincible Reason

  Tuchulcha

  Farith Redloss, Voted Lieutenant, Dreadwing

  Vazheth Licinia, Mistress of the astropathic choir, Invincible Reason

  Iron Hands

  Khalybus, Captain, Sthenelus

  Raud, Sergeant

  Cruax, Iron Father

  Seterikus, Legionary

  Demir, Legionary

  Kiriktas, Helmsman, Sthenelus

  Raven Guard

  Levannas

  Word Bearers

  Toc Derenoth, Unburdened

  Grel Kathnar

  Phael Rabor, Captain

  Quor Vondor, Chaplain

  Yathinius, Navigator, Annunciation

  Nekras, Navigator, Annunciation

  Others

  Konrad Curze, Night Haunter

  Eleska Revus, Colonel, Imperial Army commander, Episimos III

  Madail the Undivided, Daemon

  Prologue

  I sing the carnage of faith rewarded.

  By verse of eight and chorus of four, with choir of bone and chords of pain, I am the celebrant of ruin.

  By path of eight and praise of four, I bow to excess and to blood, to change and to plague.

  With sight of eight, by command of four, I am weaver and reaper, the shaper of souls and their devourer.

  I lead the congregation of slaughter. I bring the revelation of skulls. My path is deluge, my wake is holocaust, and my march is fealty. I am the servant. I am the priest.

  I am the undivided.

  The web of storms shakes and moans. Its strands convulse. Down their lengths, the prisoners struggle in bonds they do not truly perceive. Fate shackles them. By power of eight and will of four, they are caught in the design. It pulls them towards me. I take up the web. I gather it in. The prey rushes forwards, blind in the arrogance of false hope.

  They are three, coming to be ground and torn by jaws of eight and edict of four. They believe in the illusion of choice, in the ragged dream of their struggle. The disciple of reason, the holder of secrets, and the winged nobility, they are infused with fire. It will burn them.

  I will burn them.

  They are no more than ash.

  But by knives of eight, for the glory of four, of the three there is the one whose pyre must be the galaxy. I pull the web, and shape his fate. The riven must stand before the undivided.

  He will embrace the majesty of ruin.

  Part I

  The Tempest

  One

  The Redemption Leap

  My sin is the greatest, the Angel thought. And so my need is the greatest. Father, hear my cry. Bring me to you.

  His great wings folded, one hand resting on the pommel of the Blade Encarmine, the Angel stood as a towering, meditative statue on the central command dais of the Red Tear’s bridge. By his word, a fleet went to war. The power of a Legion flowed from him, and his decisions, his acts, had brought the sin to all his sons. His must be the power now to wash away that sin.

  From the dais’ forwards, elevated position, Sanguinius had a pano­ramic view through the battleship’s windows. He watched the warp-torn agony of the void for a few final seconds as the shutters began to close. The view of the Ruinstorm narrowed, and the tension of the crew increased. The humans had survived the madness that had fallen upon the fleet on the jump to Signus Prime, though they bore the psychic scars, memories like shards of glass digging at their courage. But they looked at him and drew strength, and performed their duties. A navigation officer began counting down. Her voice was steady, committed. One after another, officers called from their stations, announcing the readiness of the vessel.

  A tremor ran through the decking as if the machine-spirit of the battleship were bracing itself. The Red Tear had fallen on Signus Prime. Like so many of us, the Angel thought. It had risen again. The years at Macragge had been time enough to repair the venerable ship. It was battle-worthy once more, but its scars ran as deep as those of the crew, as profound as the spiritual wounds inflicted on the Legion. Much had been lost. The lines of the battleship ran true. Its halls and bays were intact. Its weapons systems were fully operational. But the statues, the art and the manuscripts that had been burned were gone forever. The Red Tear had been the proud embodiment of the culture of Baal. Each destroyed artefact was a vanished piece of Blood Angels history. Sculptures, tapestries and tableaux still lined the corridors. Those that could be restored had been. Sanguinius had given orders that the others stay in their places. They were memorials now. And they were reminders that the IX Legion fought on, no matter its wounds, no matter the flaws that threatened to shatter its fundamental nobility.

  The shutters closed. The Ruinstorm vanished from Sanguinius’ view. It remained before his mind’s eye. The rage of madness tore at the materium. It hid the stars. It was a howling promise of destruction, an endlessly twisting slashing at reality. Yet this bloody pyre of existence was just a foretaste of what waited in the warp itself. The warp that Sanguinius knew held worse than just the breakdown of sanity. There were deeper forces there, powers with sentience and will.

  He had fought them. He and his Legion had fought them, and they had triumphed. If it was time to fight them again, then he and his sons were ready.

  Yet he felt the wounds. He felt them in his crew, in his ship, in his Legion, in his soul.

  Seated on the Red Tear’s command throne, Carminus called out. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘the jumps of the First and Thirteenth Legions are confirmed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sanguinius said to the captain of the Third Company. He had made Carminus temporary fleet master during the exodus from the Signus System. There had been time to find a mortal officer suitable for the command, but the Angel had decided Carminus should lead the fleet again. Even if all went well, the journey through the warp was going to be a long one. After what had happened at Signus Prime, Sanguinius needed a genhanced human at the post, someone with a stronger resistance to the attacks of madness.

  At the Angel’s side, Raldoron said, ‘May we meet our brothers again at journey’s end.’

  ‘We will,’ Sanguinius told him. The First Captain had been in favour of the combined forces of the three fleets striking out together. Even if the primarchs had been of the same mind, their approaches to the journey were too different. We each have our hopes, our convictions, and our sins, he thought. Guilliman’s fleet was attacking the warp in a systematic manner, seeking to batter the storm into submission with the brute force of reason. As for the Lion…

  Sanguinius did not know his strategy. He did not know how the Lion would travel through the warp. But in their last meeting together in the Fortress of Hera, where Roboute had looked determined, the Lion had appeared confident. He fully expected to reach Terra.

  Sanguinius envied his brother’s confidence at the same time that he distrusted it. Certainty had brought catastrophe to the Imperium. Sanguinius had been certain of Horus. And what was Curze, if not certain of the truth in whose name he had slaughtered?

  The Blood Angels had been lost in the Ruinstorm when they tried to reach Terra after Signus. There was no reason to believe the passage would be any easier now. Sanguinius knew to hold fast to the certainty of uncertainty. All there was to take the Legion through the storm was urgency.

  Urgency, and the need for redemption.

  There had been no ceremony to mark the departure of the fleets from Macragge. There had been no formal taking of leave by the Triumvirate. The Emperor, the Lord Warden and the Lord Protector had left, each taking two-thirds of their fleets. Those who remained would guard Ultramar under the regency of Valentus Dolor. Imperium Secundus no longer e
xisted, except as a fiction Sanguinius despised as much as he understood its necessity. Some form of continuity had to be maintained to preserve what order had been restored to the Five Hundred Worlds. Until Terra was found again, until the Emperor was proven to be alive, the Angel’s official status could not change. For the billions of Ultramar, he was the Emperor Sanguinius. His sin could not be erased by edict. It could only be forgiven by his father.

  My sin is the greatest.

  The Angel was the usurper. He had sat upon a false throne and been called Emperor. Not even Horus had managed to go so far.

  Father, hear my cry.

  Urgency drove all three fleets. Urgency to reach Terra and confound Horus. The traitors had done their work well, convincing three Legions that there was no Terra to aid. The Ruinstorm was not just a barrier, it was a veil concealing the truth and had led to the lie of the Imperium Secundus. The lie was over now, but the barrier remained. To purge the sin of usurpation and save Terra, the task was clear.

  Break through the Ruinstorm.

  ‘The fleet is ready, lord,’ Carminus said. ‘We jump at your command.’

  Father, bring me to you.

  Sanguinius sent his need towards hidden Terra. He could not call it hope, the thing that would travel with his fleet through the warp, this convulsion in his soul that the galaxy felt too small to contain. He could not expect it would guide them to his father. But he reached out as if it would. In the exodus from Signus, anger and military priorities had been the driving needs. They were still present, but the desperate reach for redemption was even more powerful. If Sanguinius stretched out his arm, surely he should be able to grasp the path to Terra.

  The need was that strong.

  But there was no certainty, and he would not fall to the illusion.

  He turned to Mkani Kano. The Librarian stood at Raldoron’s right hand. ‘Your men are at their posts?’ he asked. Sanguinius had ordered a Librarian be stationed in the Navigation chambers of every vessel in the fleet. They were to do what they could to protect the fragile humans from the forces that would come for them in the immaterium. There was no more certainty they would succeed than there was of reaching Terra.

  ‘They stand ready,’ said Kano.

  Sanguinius turned his back on the shutters. He faced his sons and the human crew. Below the dais was a squad of Raldoron’s Sanguinary Guard. With them was the Angel’s herald. This was his sacrificial son, the legionary whose identity Sanguinius had necessarily hidden from himself, who had become the Angel’s voice in the Imperium Secundus. It was he who had been the figure most of the supplicants to the throne had seen, and not Sanguinius. The Angel now saw this son’s sacrifice as all the greater for having been part of an immoral folly. His presence on the bridge, close to Sanguinius, was in recognition of his service, and as a visible reminder of the need for atonement. The sacrifices his sons had made weighed heavily on his mind. On Signus Prime, Meros had taken his place to become the Red Angel, giving up all nobility and humanity to become the worst of the Blood Angels’ savagery. The herald lived, and remained human, but the price he paid was a high one. His helm kept his face hidden, and would until the legionary’s death. Sanguinius was no longer Emperor. There was no need for the role of herald any longer. Yet the legionary’s identity remained subsumed by his duty.