Pharos Read online

  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

  THE CRIMSON FIST

  PRINCE OF CROWS

  DEATH AND DEFIANCE

  TALLERN: EXECUTIONER

  BLADES OF THE TRAITOR

  THE PURGE

  THE HONOURED

  THE UNBURDENED

  SCORCHED EARTH

  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

  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 IX Legion ‘Blood Angels’

  Sanguinius, The reluctant emperor, ruler of Imperium Secundus, primarch of the IX Legion

  Azkaellon, Commander, Sanguinary Guard

  The XIII Legion ‘Ultramarines’

  Roboute Guilliman, Master of Ultramar, the Avenging Son, primarch of the XIII Legion

  Valentus Dolor, Tetrarch of Ultramar (Occluda), Primarch’s Champion

  Titus Prayto, Master of the Presiding Centuria, Librarius

  Sergio, Epistolary

  Adallus, Captain, 199th ‘Aegida’ Company

  Hespatian, Primus Medicae

  Taricus, Apothecary

  Genus, Vexillary

  Odillio, Sergeant

  Achamenides, Sergeant

  Solus, Sergeant

  Arkus, Squad sergeant, 55th Scout Cohort, ‘Aegida’ Company

  Oberdeii, Scout

  Tebecai, Scout

  Tolomachus, Scout

  Solon, Scout

  Florian, Scout

  Mallius, Scout

  Krissaeos, Scout

  Lethicus, Sergeant, and legionary commander of the Probity

  Caias, Battle-brother

  Tiberius, Battle-brother

  Hellas, Battle-brother

  Gellius, Shipmaster, Probity

  Juliana Vratus, Vox-officer

  Lucretius Corvo, Honoured captain, 90th ‘Nova’ Company

  Hephtus, Apothecary

  Damius, Vexillary

  Correlus, Techmarine

  Crassus, Sergeant

  Bellephon, Battle-brother

  Gollodon, Battle-brother

  Cerean, Battle-brother

  Valentian, Shipmaster, Glorious Nova

  Matheris, Helmsman

  The First Legion, ‘Dark Angels’

  Alcuis, Captain, legionary commander of the Watcher

  The VIII Legion, ‘Night Lords’

  Krukesh, ‘The Pale’, new lord of the Kyroptera

  Gendor Skraivok, ‘The Painted Count’, claw master, 45th Company

  Berenon, Battle-brother, formerly of the Librarius

  Gallivar

  Kellendvar, Headsman

  Kellenkir

  Karrig Vorsh

  Bordaan

  Forvian, Claw leader

  Ancient Carakon, Venerable Contemptor Dreadnought

  Benthen Gesh, Claw master, Seventh Company

  Wardens of the Pharos

  Barabas Dantioch, Disgraced warsmith of the Iron Warriors

  Alexis Polux, Captain, 405th Company, Imperial Fists

  Carantine, Magos biologis, Mechanicum

  Beta-Phi 97, Datasmith

  Imperial Personae

  Hulio Vitellius, Lieutenant, Sothan First Auxilia (irregular)

  Mericus Giraldus, Sergeant, Sothan First Auxilia (irregular)

  ‘Tiny’ Jonno

  Hasquin

  Martinus

  Chelvan Quintus

  Dorican

  Morio

  Hanspire

  Pontian

  Aelius

  Govenisk, Sergeant, Sothan First Auxilia (irregular)

  Kolom Bolarion, Sergeant, Sothan First Auxilia (irregular)

  Demethon

  Klavius

  Other forgotten heroes and lost souls, as the vagaries of the Pharos permit

  ONE

  Dishonour

  The proving

  Secrets and lies

  Oberdeii was in danger.

  The combat servitor walked into the practice cage, slow and idiot stiff, until the cage door clanged down behind it, its combat protocols engaged, and there was nothing idiotic about it any more. A psychotic, vestigial intelligence glimmered in its eyes. Drool ran in sheets from its mouth, a side-effect of the combat drugs pumping around its body from the brass apparatus embedded in its back. Half the skull was replaced by steel. What skin it had left was corpse grey, puckered and puffy around its implants. One hand had been replace
d by a motorised circular blade, the other arm had been severed halfway to the elbow and a wickedly edged sword grafted in its place. Its muscles had been thickened to a grotesque size by growth agents, the legs lent further strength by piston-levered callipers.

  The servitor wore the same heavy, rubberised bodysuit that all the servitors Oberdeii had ever seen wore, and when he had activated it for the session it had looked little different from its peaceful peers, those that cleaned, cooked and carried for the XIII Legion without demur.

  No longer. Electrical power surging through its remade body revealed its true nature: a murderous machine-man programmed to do its utmost to kill its opponent.

  For a moment the neophyte considered that he might have made a mistake. Then the servitor’s saw blade buzzed into life, it lurched into a staggering charge, and Oberdeii had no more time for doubt.

  Oberdeii fought with a simple steel gladius taken from the training room’s armoury. He was not yet entitled to his own, and he probably never would be. So alien at first, the heft of the short-bladed sword had become intimately familiar to him. It fit his palm perfectly, it felt right. Now that rightness sickened him. He would never be presented with the blade he had striven so hard to win. The practice sword was the failing promise of a future he would never see.

  Only months away from the end of his training, Oberdeii had been tainted, and was therefore unworthy of the Legion.

  The servitor swung the heavy buzzsaw up and over its head as it closed. Oberdeii screamed full in its face, giving voice to his anger and shame. Bracing the gladius’ blade against his left hand, he caught the saw blade on his weapon’s edge. Sparks showered from the metal and hissed onto his bare skin. He welcomed the pain. The sense of impending death sharpened his immature reflexes. If he were to fail, he would at least feel like a legionary once.

  The servitor was enormously strong. Oberdeii’s muscles protested against the pressure it put upon the blade, and yet they held. The servitor growled, blowing aseptic breath over his face.

  Oberdeii went with the servitor’s attack, turned its motion against it to fling its great mass to one side, and he marvelled at his own strength. He was still amazed at the power he had been granted. Not very long ago he had had the spare muscles of any youth, but now his arms were thick and powerful. For the last two years synthetic biochemicals had driven his metabolism into overdrive. Supplementary organs moderated every aspect of his physiology. When their work was finished, they would bring perfection to the randomly created, misfiring systems of nature. What had taken millions of years to evolve into a clumsy, unfinished state, the Emperor had perfected in mere decades.

  Oberdeii was four months from his final assessment, and not grown fully. There was still an ache in his throat from the last round of implants. He had yet to attain his full height and his full might. The man-machine he battled was among the most potent training tools in the armoury. It had been created to test a full battle-brother to the limit, and as Oberdeii angrily reflected, he was not a legionary yet.

  Animalistic roars blared from the vox-unit implanted into the combat-servitor’s chest. It moved with a smoothness that was an absurd contrast to its ugliness. Turning its stumble into a devastating attack, it swung its entire body around, arms fully extended, sending the gleaming sword-point speeding through the air towards Oberdeii’s midriff. Oberdeii bent his belly back. The tip scraped over his stomach, opening a shallow scratch. The machine whirled, bringing its whirring saw-blade in a horizontal following attack. Oberdeii barely caught the motion in time. A clumsy parry jarred the sword in his hand so hard his fingers became numb. He readjusted his grip as he danced back.

  He could almost hear Sergeant Arkus – you’re gripping it too hard, lad! Careless, he scolded himself, unworthy.

  The machine circled him. Oberdeii tensed as it came at him again – pistons hissing, heavy-booted feet thundering into the cage’s metal floor – to butt him in the chest with its reinforced skull, driving the wind from the Scout’s lungs and carrying him back hard across the cage and into the bars. The structure vibrated at the impact. The cyborg forced Oberdeii’s sword hand down and back with its forearm, the metal pins securing the prosthetic to its bones digging painfully into the youth’s wrist. Twice it banged Oberdeii’s arm against the bars, until the sword dropped from his treacherous fingers. It put its meaty forearm against his throat, the attached saw-blade burring away deafeningly right by Oberdeii’s left ear. The blade bit into his cheek, splattering them both with blood. Oberdeii jerked away from it. The servitor could have taken his head off there and then. Instead it pushed hard against the Scout’s windpipe, attempting to choke him.

  Oberdeii gasped for air. He felt his vulnerable hyoid bone flex under the pressure. The servitor’s eyes glared. There was nothing of humanity in them, only a machine-born hatred and a need to kill.

  Oberdeii was going to die, and he welcomed it.

  He could not bear the dreams, not any more. A darkness was coming. He had heard the whispers beneath Mount Pharos, and ever since then he had been dogged by fear of a peril so vast and monstrous that it blotted out all hope in his soul, for he could do nothing to avert it.

  Knowledge tyrannised him, and it would not let him sleep.

  Six weeks in the apothecarion recovering. After lights out he lay with his eyes closed, his nights spent in a feverish non-sleep that took him back into the dark of the mountain and the terrible truths that lived there. When he woke, if he could call it waking, he began every day-cycle with the same foreboding.

  Fear and knowledge were why he would fail. Terror was why he had come to the training room in the dead of night.

  His throat closed. His physiology went into overdrive to conserve oxygen. The servitor snarled out its programmed fury. Oberdeii’s veins bulged and his face reddened. His eyes felt as if they would burst.

  In desperation, he spat in the servitor’s face.

  It was a poor spit – with his throat constricted he could not milk his Betcher’s gland effectively, nor propel the poison it produced. Acid sprayed into the servitor’s face in a spattering cloud.

  The servitor reeled back, blinded. Oberdeii dived to the side as it recovered and swung its sawblade right through the space where his head had been. The combat augmetic connected with the cage bar with such force it tore through the metal with a horrendous squealing sound.

  Its target eluding it, the servitor stopped. Oberdeii froze, his eyes fixed on his dropped blade. The servitor cocked its head to one side, searching for the boy, insensible of the acid burning its face. Oberdeii stifled his urge to draw in huge gasps of air to replenish his empty lungs, in case it heard him. Holding his breath after his choking was an ordeal. Spots whirled in front of his eyes. He should have thought to inflate his multilung before entering the ring. That would have given him minutes more oxygen. He cursed himself for not thinking to utilise his new abilities to their full advantage.

  He stayed motionless as the machine-man stepped round in a half-circle. His sword lay on the far side of the creature.

  There was only one possible practical. Oberdeii wasted no time on thought. He let out a shout, putting all his frustration into it. The servitor zeroed in on his position instantaneously. Oberdeii rolled as the saw-blade slammed into the floor, bit into the plating and dragged the servitor forward. Darting past his opponent, Oberdeii grabbed his gladius and ran around the inside of the bars, dragging the broad tip over them to make them sing. The servitor followed the noise. Oberdeii stopped, and it leapt. He dodged a sword thrust, grabbed the servitor’s sword arm and pushed it out through the bars, jamming the elbow hard up against a crossbrace. He stabbed through the elbow, then hacked down at the servitor’s legs.

  It was an inelegant blow, but it served its intended purpose. Hydraulic fluid spurted from severed lines in the calipers. The left leg sagged. Oberdeii danced away as the servitor thrashed at the cage to extract
its paralysed arm. The Scout slashed through the steel-cable tendon of its ankle, then jumped back as the servitor yanked out its ruined arm and came after him. A second of elation turned to dismay as his foot folded under him and he fell backwards.

  The servitor took a step, put its damaged leg down, and fell directly on top of the boy.

  Oberdeii got his sword-point up in the nick of time. The weight of the servitor forced the weapon through its metal-dense body. The weapon was at an awkward angle, and something gave in his wrist. He ignored the pain and dragged the sword around in the servitor’s innards. The machine made a high-pitched mechanical wheezing. Teeth clacking madly, it jerked atop him with bruising force, then went limp.

  The saw-blade spun for a few seconds more, and stopped.

  Oberdeii gave his sword an experimental twist. There was no response. The servitor’s running lights were out.

  ‘You are dead, then,’ he said, and let his head thump back onto the deck plates.

  He lay under the machine as his hearts slowed. For a few moments he lost himself in their strange dual beat. Of all the changes wrought upon him, that alteration to the fundamental rhythm of his body had taken the most getting used to.

  He heaved the cyborg off and stood.

  He looked down upon the shattered body leaking blood and oil in equal measure. Whatever crime the servitor had committed in life to deserve its fate would be forever unknown to Oberdeii. He supposed it had paid its dues in full. Final mercy had been granted at his hand. He felt a shudder of revulsion. If he were judged wanting he might find himself in a similar position, for there were few roles suited to failed aspirants. His arm shook violently as he raised it to wipe the sweat pouring off his forehead. He had been suffering mild palsies when under extreme duress. His implants were still not fully biochemically integrated with his body. Apothecary Taricus assured him it would pass.

  A choking noise came from Oberdeii’s throat.

  It would not pass. The process would not finish. He would never be an Ultramarine. He was polluted by the touch of the machine in the mountain. The gladius fell from his hands. He felt sick, feeling the shock afresh yet again. No matter how many times he thought on it, the pain did not lessen.

  Oberdeii grieved for the man he would never be.