Spear of Ultramar 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

  Book 46 – RUINSTORM

  Book 47 – OLD EARTH

  Book 48 – THE BURDEN OF LOYALTY

  Book 49 – WOLFSBANE

  Book 50 – BORN OF FLAME

  Book 51 – SLAVES TO DARKNESS

  Book 52 – HERALDS OF THE SIEGE

  More tales from the Horus Heresy...

  PROMETHEAN SUN

  AURELIAN

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM

  THE CRIMSON FIST

  CORAX: SOULFORGE

  PRINCE OF CROWS

  DEATH AND DEFIANCE

  TALLARN: EXECUTIONER

  SCORCHED EARTH

  THE PURGE

  THE HONOURED

  THE UNBURDENED

  BLADES OF THE TRAITOR

  TALLARN: IRONCLAD

  RAVENLORD

  THE SEVENTH SERPENT

  WOLF KING

  CYBERNETICA

  SONS OF THE FORGE

  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

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Dreadwing’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  The Horus Heresy

  It is a time of legend.

  Mighty heroes battle for the right to rule the galaxy. The vast armies of the Emperor of Earth have conquered the galaxy in a Great Crusade – the myriad alien races have been smashed by the Emperor’s elite warriors and wiped from the face of history.

  The dawn of a new age of supremacy for humanity beckons.

  Gleaming citadels of marble and gold celebrate the many victories of the Emperor. Triumphs are raised on a million worlds to record the epic deeds of his most powerful and deadly warriors.

  First and foremost amongst these are the primarchs, superheroic beings who have led the Emperor’s armies of Space Marines in victory after victory. They are unstoppable and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperor’s genetic experimentation. The Space Marines are the mightiest human warriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of besting a hundred normal men or more in combat.

  Organised into vast armies of tens of thousands called Legions, the Space Marines and their primarch leaders conquer the galaxy in the name of the Emperor.

  Chief amongst the primarchs is Horus, called the Glorious, the Brightest Star, favourite of the Emperor, and like a son unto him. He is the Warmaster, the commander-in-chief of the Emperor’s military might, subjugator of a thousand thousand worlds and conqueror of the galaxy. He is a warrior without peer, a diplomat supreme.

  As the flames of war spread through the Imperium, mankind’s champions will all be put to the ultimate test.

  ~ Dramatis Personae ~

  Ultramarines

  Roboute Guilliman, Primarch

  Titus Prayto, Librarian

  Drakus Gorod, Commander, Invictarus Suzerain Bodyguard

  Iasus, Chapter Master of the 22nd

  Hierax, Captain of the Second Destroyers

  Antalcidas, Dreadnought, Second Destroyers

  Kletos, Legionary, Second Destroyers

  Aphovos, Librarian, Second Destroyers

  Gorthia, Sergeant, Third Squad, Second Destroyers

  Lanatus, Pilot, Second Destroyers

  Lucretious Corvo, Captain, 90th Company, Ninth Chapter

  Ancevan, Sergeant, 90th Company, Ninth Chapter

  Tulian Aquila, Captain, 77th Company, Seventh Chapter

  Vascas, Sergeant

  Maesa, Navigator, Ultimus Mundi

  Bethra Kallan, Auspex officer, Ultimus Mundi

  Taius Netertian, Shipmaster, Ultimus Mundi

  Iron Warriors

  Khrossus, Warsmith, 134th Grand Company

  Darhug, Captain

  Vûrtaq, Captain

  Navghar, Sergeant

  Savarran, Legionary

  Word Bearers

  Ker Vanthax, High Chaplain

  Mechanicum

  Rissin, Magos Dominus

  Prologue

  Contingency

  The Throneworld waits for the sky to fall. The swarming millions in the hab slums beneath the manufactoria await the impact, and above them, the forges operate at a fever pitch of desperate war production. On the ramparts of fortifications tall as mountain chains, armoured giants march among the massed regiments of mortal soldiers, and all their thoughts and all
their guns are aimed skywards. In the high towers, and in the rockcrete canyons of the Imperial Palace, the sentinels of humanity wait for the coming of the Traitors.

  The preparations have been made. The fortifications are strong. The architects of the defence of Terra have drawn their plans and issued their commands. There are no further measures to be taken.

  Except…

  ‘If you know the truth of your walls,’ Rogal Dorn once said, ‘then there can be reversals in a siege, but there cannot truly be surprises.’

  The words haunt him now. He has acted in accordance with this principle. He has done everything in his power to excise any possibility of surprise. There have already been too many surprises in this war, and the greatest has been the war itself.

  The Grand Borealis Strategium is an enormous, domed chamber inside the massive, forbidding block of the Bhab Bastion. It is laid out in concentric rings descending from the central platform. Each ring is dedicated to another layer of defence. Pict screens and tacticarium tables line each circumference. Robed serfs angle the screens to follow Dorn’s movements, so they face him wherever he is in the strategium. From the centre, he can see, in summary form, the entirety of Terra’s defences. Hololithic displays of the quadrants of the Imperial Palace rotate for his inspection. The chamber is silent except for the occasional burst of vox traffic, providing updates of the current dispositions.

  There are no windows in the strategium. The walls of the dome are maps of the local Terran space, and hololithic projectors display the orbital defences in real time.

  Dorn stands with Malcador on the central platform. He has, for all practical purposes, the authority of a god in this space. Any change he commands in this chamber will be reflected almost immediately in the world outside its walls. He has surveyed, near and far, every detail of the defences for several hours now, and he has made no changes. He sees no improvements to be made on his work.

  Yet he keeps looking.

  ‘You are not satisfied,’ Malcador says, reading Dorn’s expression.

  ‘Are you?’

  The gaunt figure of the Sigillite, robed in shadow, tapped a pale finger against his staff of office. ‘I cannot conceive of any satisfaction until after this war is finished. If then. But what is it that troubles you, Rogal?’

  ‘What always has. There are too many variables, too many unknowns. And what we do know…’ Dorn grimaces. ‘I would change the odds, if I could, but they are what they are.’

  ‘We need Guilliman to change them,’ says Malcador.

  Dorn nods. ‘I know the spear has been thrown from Ultramar. It could pin Horus against our shields. But I don’t know how fast the spear is coming, or when it might strike, or if there will still be shields when it arrives. And yet every calculus of victory depends on that arrival.’ He gazes at rows of displays, envisaging each position of strength, and what it would take to overcome them.

  Nothing is indestructible, he thinks. Anyone who believes otherwise is already halfway to being defeated.

  ‘Is there any news?’ he asks Malcador.

  ‘Fragments from the astropathic choirs,’ says the Sigillite. ‘Some of them suggestive, none of them definitive. Guilliman advances from the galactic south, but how fast, or how near he might be, we know no more than we did yesterday.’

  Dorn turns to the tacticarium table on the platform. Dark red runes, representing the enemy fleets, close in on the hololith of Terra. The monstrous fist that is Horus’ combined fleets is triggering a psychic displacement wave so vast that it has proven fatal to the weaker astropaths. What is coming is so big, it cannot hide. Dorn can anticipate the arrival of the enemy. What he cannot do is factor in, or exclude, reinforcements.

  ‘It would almost be preferable to know Guilliman was too far,’ says Dorn. ‘If we knew that Horus would have a free hand for any length of time, then we could set aside any unrealistic, damaging hope.’

  ‘Your estimations are that bleak, then,’ says Malcador.

  ‘Without Guilliman? What do you think?’

  ‘I think the same,’ Malcador admits.

  Dorn walks slowly around the edge of the platform, taking in the expanse of the strategium, looking again at the totality of his work. ‘I know our strengths. I know many of the enemy’s. I know enough that I cannot calculate the outcome. If Guilliman arrives, the balance shifts. If he does not…’

  Malcador nods, but says nothing.

  Dorn listens to the thickening silence. He can almost hear the cracks of the fault lines opening in the heavens as the sky prepares to fall. He wills his brother to find greater speed. He wills the Avenging Son to descend with fire upon the betrayers of their father.

  In spite of how much he knows, Dorn begins to succumb to the lure of hope.

  It feels like more than a temptation. As the shattering of the sky approaches, it feels like a necessity.

  One

  Spear and Hammer

  The frame of the sandglass is wrought iron, and unadorned. It holds the crystal bulbs in a stern grip, as unyielding and blank to entreaty as time. It once belonged to Guilliman’s adoptive father, Konor. It has been in his private senate chambers in Macragge Civitas, and by chance and strength, it has survived the blows and tumults of war. The crystal is scarred, the iron scorched with burns, but the sandglass has travelled from Macragge to the battleship Ultimus Mundi. It was ancient when it belonged to Konor. It is too imprecise for practical use, but as a personal goad it serves well. Over a foot high, it stands on a corner of Guilliman’s desk. He began to use it shortly after the engagement with the World Eaters in the Diavanos system. It is not the approximate hour that the sandglass marks that is important to him. It is the sight of the falling grains, and the slipping away of time they represent.

  Guilliman turned the sandglass over for the first time and let the sands fall when he saw the signs that the nature of his role in the war had changed. Horus had hurled a gauntlet to keep Sanguinius and the Blood Angels from reaching Terra. Guilliman countered by forcing the larger portions of the enemy forces to deal with him and his larger fleet, opening the way for Sanguinius.

  Recently, the enemy’s tactics have altered. And now, what the Ultramarines have found, or more particularly have not found since arriving in the Apamea system, is confirmation that the war has entered another phase.

  Titus Prayto and Drakus Gorod enter Guilliman’s study. The Librarian of the Ultramarines and the commander of the Invictarus Suzerain Bodyguard both have expressions suggesting a cautious, guarded, puzzled optimism. Prayto has the features proper to a warrior-scholar, sharp and thoughtful, his gaze always observing, and guarded against easy conclusions. Gorod, in contrast, is massive even by the standards of Legiones Astartes, his hulking shape belying his nobility and intelligence.

  ‘It is as the initial scans suggested,’ Prayto says. ‘The enemy has abandoned Apamea.’

  Guilliman nods. On a monumental, circular, oaken table in the centre of the study is a vellum map of the galactic south. On it, Guilliman has laid obsidian icons representing the Ultramarines fleet and the traitor forces. The positions are speculative. He moves them around a lot. He takes into account what little concrete information has come his way, but the map is a vast theoretical. He uses it to play out scenarios, to pace through one narrative after another of the progress of the war, to find the most likely, and use that to guide his own actions. He has left an enemy icon over Apamea. Now he removes it and holds it, pensively working through where he should place it next.

  ‘Where are they?’ Gorod asks. ‘This system is a great prize to give up without a fight.’ Apamea has two forge worlds. It is still far enough from Terra that its position is not strategic, but if Guilliman can use it to resupply his forces, so can Horus. What Horus cannot do, and Guilliman will, is gather more willing, loyal armies to bolster his strength further. Even if blocking the Blood Angels is no longer a prio
rity, Apamea is worth holding under most military considerations. Only a very select set of circumstances would dictate abandoning it.

  ‘There is no sign of a conflict?’ Guilliman asks.

  ‘Very little,’ says Gorod. ‘Some signs of conquest, yes, when the traitors took the system. But nothing recent.’

  ‘They pulled out,’ Prayto says. ‘They were not driven out.’

  ‘So where did they go?’ Gorod wonders.

  ‘Here,’ says Guilliman. He places the icon next to the largest mass of enemy fleets, in the broad vicinity of Terra. There is no doubt about the pattern he is seeing now. The Ultramarines have encountered at most token garrisons in the last few systems. And now nothing. ‘Horus is feeling pressed,’ says Guilliman. ‘If he is abandoning what he has held, then his goal is more urgent, and more critical, than stopping Sanguinius.’

  ‘We can theorise the Blood Angels have reached Terra, then,’ says Prayto.

  ‘I believe so. There are two things that would force his hand. That is one of them. The other is the pressure we are exerting. Theoretical – the Blood Angels are on Terra, and Horus feels he must lay siege to, and break, Terra before our arrival, or he will lose what advantage he has. And there is Beta-Garmon.’ He points to the system on the map. ‘It is the gateway to Terra. We are reaching the point in this war where speculation will vanish. We will know what Horus must do, and he will know the same of us. And in the end, this is the essential truth. If he is to have a chance of taking Terra, it must be soon.’

  ‘This is if he means to conquer the Throneworld,’ says Gorod. ‘And not simply destroy it.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Guilliman says. ‘I thought I knew my brother, and I was wrong, on many levels. But I can still recognise Horus, even through the atrocities he has committed. And I recognise his approach to war. Destroying Terra will not satisfy him. He will not be satisfied unless he feels he has defeated our father. He will not rest until he has proven his superiority. That need is a flaw. It buys us time.’

  ‘Enough time?’ Prayto asks.

  Guilliman glances at the grains draining into the bottom bulb of the sandglass. ‘That is our duty now. To ensure the time we have is enough.’

  ‘Guilliman will come to Carchera,’ Warsmith Khrossus says. ‘That is not in question.’