The Unburdened Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy

  Dramatis Personae

  Part One – The Burden of the Past

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Part Two – The Burden of Loyalty

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Part Three – The Burden of Flesh

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘The Honoured’

  Legal

  eBook license

  Novels

  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

  Novellas

  PROMETHEAN SUN

  AURELIAN

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM

  PRINCE OF CROWS

  THE CRIMSON FIST

  DEATH AND DEFIANCE

  TALLARN: EXECUTIONER

  THE HONOURED

  THE UNBURDENED

  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 ~

  The False Imperium

  The Emperor of Mankind, The Reluctant God, and unworthy Master of Mankind

  Malcador the Sigillite, First Lord of Terra, simpering lackey to the Throne

  The XIII Legion ‘Ultramarines’

  Roboute Guilliman, Primarch, the thrice-accursed Lord of Ultramar

  Steloc Aethon, Captain, ‘The Honoured 19th’ Company

  Dardanus

  Envixus

  Tibor

  The XVII Legion ‘Word Bearers’

  Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch, the Urizen, the Bearer of the Word

  Kor Phaeron, First Captain, the Black Cardinal, architect of Calth’s doom

  Erebus, The Dark Apostle, First Chaplain

  Kurtha Sedd, Chaplain-Apostle, Chapter of the Third Hand

  Tergothar, Captain, Fifth Assault Company

  Sor Gharax, ‘The Bull’, Contemptor Dreadnought

  Ghulun Vaad, Sergeant, Ulughar Squad

  Toc Derenoth

  Kaeloq

  Khuzhun

  Rethaz Qann

  Vor Raennag, Sergeant, Gurthuz Squad

  Arathrax

  Varnak Gath

  Qarthon, Veteran sergeant, Rhaalahn Squad

  Gherak Haxx, Hurundath Squad, Seventh Company

  Versithis, Tenth Company

  Ruath Dhur, Tenth Company

  Cultists of Chaos

  Khrothis

  And Aethon falls.

  See that plunge, that final plunge. See the darkness of the abyss rise to claim his body. To accept him as sacrifice. To devour him.

  Do you know what you have done?

  Yes.

  Do you understand what you have done?

  Yes.

  Do you feel what you have done? Do you feel what you are doing?

  Yes. The weight of the tumbling body. The weight of the act. Hurled into the dark, given to the truth. So much torn away, falling, vanishing. So much of identity and soul burned and severed.

  So many beliefs, ties, loyalties. So many crimes and betrayals.

  Burdens. Their masses like boulders, like mountain chains. Shaping, constraining, crushing, yet to release them is an amputation. A mutilation.

  All the burdens, falling with Aethon into the dark.

  The rising dark.

  ONE

  The taste of dust

  Blindness

  Faith and weakness

  ‘We will have the answers we seek before the day is done.’

  Kurtha Sedd, Chaplain of the Fifth Assault Company, Chapter of the Third Hand, stood on the blasted plain that was the corpse and the grave of Monarchia. He repeated the words under his breath. No one else heard. He had removed his helm, and the sentence was swept away by the doleful wind. He repeated it again, with the doleful rhythm of a mourning bell. He was not the only one of his brothers whose spirit was held captive by that sentence. He heard others speak it, both nearby and over the vox. But the refrains he heard were at least as angry and determined as they were bewildered.

  Was he the only one who regarded the promise of answers with sick dread?

  The words were Lorgar’s words, the last full sentence he had spoken to his sons before his vox-transmission to the fleet had been cut off and Guilliman had ordered the XVII Legion planetside.

  Guilliman ordered. And we obeyed.

  He forced that thought – and its attendant question why? – aside. There were other, much larger questions. Much worse ones. And the answers, he was
sure, would be worse yet.

  We will have the answers we seek before the day is done.

  The words of the primarch were reality itself. It was not that Lorgar shaped reality with his speech. He was the son of a god, not a god himself. But in Lorgar’s words, both written and voiced, Kurtha Sedd saw the total apprehension of the truth. Such was the depth of Lorgar’s understanding. He had prophesied the coming of the Emperor to Colchis, and so the Emperor had come, as if summoned by the call of his son and the need of the world. Lorgar had brought the XVII Legion to the knowledge of the Emperor’s godhood. Lorgar’s words, truth, the real: there was no space between the concepts. This certainty was the bedrock of Kurtha Sedd’s faith.

  If Lorgar said answers would come, they would.

  Kurtha Sedd did not want them to come. He could not imagine any answer that would not strike with the force of a cyclonic torpedo.

  He took a deep breath. Unfiltered by his helm, the ruined air of Monarchia scraped into his throat and lungs. His mouth filled with the taste of betrayal. It was dust, it was ash, and it was the lingering heat of annihilation. His neuroglottis parsed the smell, telling what had burned. Stone and metal, wood and cloth. And yes, human flesh. Beyond what had been the outer walls of the perfect city was a displaced population of millions. The people wandered and mourned and tore their hair. They wept for their homes, they wept in incomprehension, and they wept for loved ones. There had been massacres here. People had resisted. People had chosen not to flee. They had died for their fidelity to the Emperor.

  Kurtha Sedd tasted their martyrdom. He felt sick. Blood demands blood. Lorgar had said that too, when confronted by the scars on Khur, the evidence of the Ultramarines’ crime. Blood demands blood. Perhaps. But that was a response, not an answer.

  And the response had not come. What had happened to Monarchia defied all comprehension, and instead of attacking, the Word Bearers had obeyed the Ultramarines and descended to the site of destruction.

  Kurtha Sedd turned around slowly, blinking away the grit that gathered on his eyelashes. Every direction was the same: the blackened ground, the great absence of the perfection that had stood here, and the gathering of his brothers. Thunderhawks stirred up billows of dust with their engines as they came in to land. As Word Bearers wandered over the fused, melted, pulverised remnants of Monarchia, the ash blew in swirls from their armour. Grey motes flew from grey masses, as if the armour itself were disintegrating.

  We are eroding, Kurtha Sedd thought. A killing wind was blowing through the Legion. It was bad enough now. What would it be when the answers came?

  ‘Chaplain?’

  He blinked. Toc Derenoth stood before him. ‘What is it, brother?’ he asked the other legionary.

  ‘We are gathering.’ He pointed to Kurtha Sedd’s left.

  ‘Yes.’ The Chaplain didn’t look. He was gripped by a vision triggered by the close sight of the swirling ash and Toc Derenoth’s power armour. It was a vision of erosion, yes, but of a particular kind. On the Word Bearer’s right pauldron, the sunburst design and sinuous rune of the Third Hand were as bright and strong as ever. The parchments of devotion to the Emperor were turning grey in the air, darkening with filth, becoming illegible. The script on his armour, the indelible truths of the Imperium, appeared to be flaking off into the wind.

  What am I seeing? Kurtha Sedd wondered.

  The answer came between the beats of his hearts: truth crumbling. Truth that was eternal, that was the light for the entire galaxy. Breaking down, eaten by the wind, obscured by dust and flying away with ash.

  Kurtha Sedd’s instinct was to turn from the vision. He should shut his eyes to this blasphemy. But the discipline and duty of a Chaplain sustained him. His duty was to look deeper. His discipline gave him the tools to reach understanding.

  The Imperial Truth vanishes. The Third Hand remains.

  The core is freed of the distorting encrustation.

  He grunted. The idea struck him to the core, a gladius sinking deep between his ribs. He hurled it away, but the wound remained. He could already feel it fester, as if he had been struck by something with the potency of actual insight.

  Of truth.

  Another deep breath. Another lungful of ruin. Then: ‘Yes,’ he said, again. He nodded to Toc Derenoth. He observed the current of movement, the Legion forming up and advancing to a centre that no longer existed. He began to march. Around him, the Fifth Assault Company assumed formation and purpose.

  Legionary Kaeloq approached from his left. Kurtha Sedd had spoken with him and Toc Derenoth often over the years. Both warriors had deep, laudable hungers for understanding, and a talent for exegesis. But where Toc Derenoth’s study of the Word and the Truth led him from one question to another, Kaeloq’s quest was for answers. He was devoted to the hierarchy of spiritual leadership in descent from the Emperor to the primarch, from the primarch to the Chaplains.

  ‘Are we at war, Chaplain?’ Kaeloq asked.

  ‘What do you think, brother?’ Kurtha Sedd made it a practice to redirect Kaeloq’s questions back at him. The easily gained answer, even though true, would lack the proper strength of revelation. But this time, there was nothing rhetorical or instructive about his response. His question was genuine.

  ‘It’s an attack, but it makes no tactical sense,’ Kaeloq said, struggling as they all were with the inexplicable. ‘And we were not fired upon when we arrived.’

  ‘And why would we be at war with a brother Legion?’ said Toc Derenoth.

  The Chaplain didn’t answer. The vox crackled with silence. Even though Toc Derenoth had phrased his question as a denial, rejecting the idea even as he gave it form, just saying the words was to give voice to something monstrous.

  Legion against Legion. Such unimaginable fratricide would crack the materium in half. There was no other way reality could respond to that impossibility.

  And yet Monarchia was ash.

  And the air was filled with the taste of a truth that could not be spoken.

  ‘Surely some revelation is at hand,’ Kurtha Sedd muttered.

  ‘What do you mean, Chaplain?’ Toc Derenoth asked.

  Kurtha Sedd shook his head. ‘Nothing. Something. I don’t know, brother. I was quoting an ancient remembrancer of Terra. Yaitz. The fragments of his work that have come down to us have been interpreted as prophesying the coming of the Emperor.’

  Surely some revelation is at hand.

  We will have the answers we seek.

  His life as Chaplain had been devoted to the Truth, and to its discovery, its praise, and its propagation. And now, how he dreaded its coming. He would hold it back if he could. And yet, he refused to don his helm. He refused to filter the murdered air of Monarchia. He was taking truth on board with every breath, and with every breath something fractured a bit more, something more than vital, something that should never break.

  He walked through the cinders. His steps kicked up small clouds of particulate. A weight pressed down on his shoulders, growing more massive as the time for answers drew near.

  The Word Bearers assembled for their answers. Rank upon rank of warriors in grey. As Toc Derenoth and Kaeloq fell back, rejoining their squad, Kurtha Sedd advanced with the other Chaplains and the captains. He opened a vox-channel to the full company. ‘The Word is our burden,’ he said. ‘Nothing can surpass its holy weight. Whatever this day brings, brothers of the Seventeenth Legion, know that we will shoulder it.’

  Clicks and mutters of assent answered him. Then he broke the connection. He didn’t trust himself to speak without doubt working its way into his voice.

  He didn’t even trust the sound of his breathing.

  When, after the wounds of the day had scabbed over sufficiently for them to be discussed at all, Kurtha Sedd found, as he had suspected, that he was one of the first to feel the greater betrayals. Before the Rebuke, before the primarch confront
ed his father, even before Guilliman and the Sigillite appeared, Kurtha Sedd was staggered by the sight of the Ultramarines banners. A hundred warriors in blue descended the ramps of their Thunderhawks, and a white horse on an azure field shone with pride through the haze.

  The 19th Company.

  Aethon, Kurtha Sedd thought. He managed to remain upright.

  He realised that, until this moment, he had nurtured an unconscious hope: that Aethon did not know about, or at the very least did not condone, the crime perpetrated on Khur. The idea of the Ultramarines turning on another Legion was mad, but the madness did not bear the face of a friend. He needed to hang on to something. There must be stability somewhere. The entire universe could not have fallen to madness. But there was Aethon at the head of his company. He not only knew, he had participated in the destruction.

  The ground beneath Kurtha Sedd’s feet was thin as ice, changeable as sand.

  Why? Kurtha Sedd wanted to reach across the space between the Word Bearers and Ultramarines, across the emptiness that had once been the Inaga Sector, and shake the warrior at whose side he had fought so many campaigns. Why? he wanted to cry to his friend. The legionary whose life he had saved on Melior-Tertia, the brother with whom he had celebrated victories, with whom he had debated the finer points of the Imperial Truth.

  His trust in Aethon was adamantine. Every joint campaign between the Word Bearers and the Ultramarines had cemented the bond forged during the vanquishing of the orks.

  Trust. Loyalty. Brotherhood. The belief in these concepts and the need for their reality were chains, wrapped so tight around his chest and throat that he could not breathe. They trapped him. They pushed down on his soul, crushing instead of freeing.

  Aethon was here. Aethon knew. There was the first answer. If the first was so terrible, how much worse would the others be?

  He tried to brace himself.

  The effort was futile. The hammer blows began.

  How much worse?

  They would be enough to force him to his knees.

  The answers came, one after another. Their impact was cumulative. The ends of Kurtha Sedd’s fingers buzzed. A sensation both numbing and agonising crawled up his limbs as all that was real crumbled, and the impossible rioted. His vision was blasted by the sight of everything he knew to be, ground into the ashes of Monarchia.