The Silent War 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

  Novellas

  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

  CENSURE

  WOLF HUNT

  HUNTER’S MOON

  THIEF OF REVELATIONS

  TEMPLAR

  ECHOES OF RUIN

  MASTER OF THE FIRST & THE LONG NIGHT

  THE EAGLE’S TALON & IRON CORPSES

  RAPTOR

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

  Also available

  MACRAGGE’S HONOUR

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy

  The Purge

  The Sigillite

  Wolf Hunt

  Army Of One

  The Gates of Terra

  Ghosts Speak Not

  Templar

  Distant Echoes of Old Night

  Grey Angel

  Lost Sons

  Child of Night

  Luna Mendax

  Patience

  The Watcher

  About the Authors

  An Extract from ‘I Am Slaughter’

  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.

  ‘Know then that the past has two faces – one bright and bloody and known by all, the other shadowed and hidden, its features lost in time. That forgotten face, the face that no one will ever see, that is the true face of history. The face of the Silent War.’

  – attrib. unknown legionary of the Dark Angels, c.M31

  The Purge

  Anthony Reynolds

  ~ Dramatis Personae ~

  The XVII Legion ‘Word Bearers’

  Sor Talgron, Captain of the 34th Company, and representative of Lorgar on Terra

  Jarulek, Chaplain, and later Dark Apostle

  Ahraneth, 34th Company standard bearer

  Dal Ahk, Master of Signal

  Loth, Reconnaissance sergeant

  Telakhas, Line-breaker sergeant

  Urhlan, Apothecary

  Volkhar Wreth, Predicant, serving in the Crusader Host

  The XIII Legion ‘Ultramarines’

  Aecus Decimus, Chapter Master, 17th Chapter

  Connor, Sergeant, 170th Company

  Naxor, Techmarine, 170th Company

  Tillus Victorius, 171st Company champion

  Vaul Agregius, Veteran battle-brother, 171st Company

  Freia Solontine, Admiral, commander of the Righteous Fury

  Romus, Veteran battle-brother, 170th Company [marked]

  Paulus, Sky Hunter, 172nd Company [marked]

  Xion Octavion, Battle-brother, 174th Company [marked]

  Sio, Battle-brother, 175th Company [marked]

  Korolos, Former captain, 178th Company [marked]

  The Defenders of Terra

  Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, and the Emperor’s Praetorian

  Archamus, Master of Dorn’s huscarls

  Tiber Acanthus, Custodian Guard

  Nathaniel Garro, Former battle-captain of the Death Guard

  ‘Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.’

  – attributed to the pre-Unity prophet Dhoyalle

  Prologue

  456008.M31 – Percepton System, Ultramar

  The legionary writhed on the apothecarion’s slab. Skinless, raw and bleeding, he more closely resembled one of the Dwellers Beyond than anything of human birth.

  His fl
esh had run like wax, giving it a wet, glossy-slick appearance. His features had melted and blurred together, making it look as though he wore a grotesque cult mask. His eye sockets were tortured red pits, burned tear trails all that remained of his liquefied eyeballs, and what was left of his mouth opened and closed in agony. Strings of melted flesh linked his lips – or at least where his lips had been.

  Servo-cutters, diamond-tipped drills and mono-saws cut away the smoking sections of his ruined Mark III plate. Each piece fell with a resounding crash, splattering blood and oil across the pristine white floor. The legionary’s flesh had fused with his armour, and he thrashed and mewled as it was shorn away – peeled from him like the exoskeleton of a beetle, exposing yet more mutilation beneath. Hot vapours rose from the exposed, bloody ruin, stinking of acidic chemical fire and cooked meat.

  He was not alone; every slab within the apothecarion was occupied, and scores of legionaries had been dumped wherever space allowed it. The groans and roars of the dying and wounded blended with the background noise of frantic orders, bone saws, life support systems, hypo-injectors and synth-skin applicators.

  Needles, feeder cables and stims were rammed into his veins and spinal column and a re-breather tube shoved down his throat. He went into convulsions, his blood pressure dropped markedly, and alarms began to whine.

  With a burst of fevered strength, he tore free of the restraints holding him down. As medicae attendants rushed forward, he yanked the re-breather tube from his throat and clutched at the nearest Apothecary with a waxen claw-like hand, pulling him close. The abused muscles of his neck bulged like wet cables as he strained forward.

  He gargled something indecipherable, splattering blood across the Apothecary’s faceplate.

  The attendants struggled to hold him down. Even wounded as he was, they were as children against his augmented strength. His grip was like iron.

  ‘Urhlan,’ he snarled, eyeless sockets boring into the Apothecary. ‘Do… not… inter me.’

  In answer, Apothecary Urhlan pressed his wrist-mounted narthecium to the patient’s neck, injecting more doses of powerful narcotics into his bloodstream. The legionary’s grip went slack, fingers twitching.

  Apothecary Urhlan stepped back and the medicae attendants finally managed to secure their charge with new restraints. Blood coated his arms and chest – not all of it was his patient’s. His white armour was acid-scarred and malfunctioning, sparks leaping from damaged joints and servos, and he moved with a pronounced limp. He had barely made it off-world himself, and he’d already been aboard his evacuation shuttle when everything had gone wrong.

  ‘Will he live?’

  Urhlan glanced back to the one who had spoken; the Dark Apostle, Jarulek. He stood with arms crossed over his chest. There were a handful of other officers and legionaries clustered around the slab. All of them bore evidence of battle, and most sported wounds of varying severity.

  ‘I am surprised he is even alive now,’ Urhlan said, making a vain attempt to wipe the blood from his helmet’s visor lenses. ‘I was surprised that he was alive when he got here.’

  ‘But can you save him?’

  Urhlan looked down at his patient, writhing on the slab before him.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Then his fate is in the gods’ hands,’ said Jarulek.

  Urhlan turned back towards the now comatose, twitching mass of chem-melted flesh on the slab before him. It was hard to believe that this was his captain.

  ‘Get out,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Let me work. I will do what I can.’

  One

  454008.M31 – Percepton System, Ultramar

  The war had been won in twenty-seven minutes, though the battle still raged on one hundred and sixty-three days later.

  Twenty-seven minutes. That had been how long it had taken for his ships to cripple the Ultramarines fleet above Percepton Primus. The enemy had not yet heard about Calth, nor of Armatura, Talassar, or any of the countless other warzones targeted as part of the Shadow Crusade.

  The chronometer had clicked over, and he had given the order.

  The Word Bearers struck. Over half the enemy flotilla was lost in the opening salvoes, the rest in the hours and days after. The wreckage now orbited the capital planet, the heart of this system.

  Thus, the war for Percepton was won in twenty-seven minutes. In the months that followed, all that remained was to complete the cull.

  One hundred and sixty-four days after that initial strike, the world of Percepton Primus ended.

  132006.M31 – Terra

  From orbit it was possible to see the coastlines that once delineated the continents of old Terra. The vast ocean tracts that had covered the globe were gone, vaporised during the long internecine nuke-wars that almost obliterated humanity in bygone ages, but the original shapes could still be vaguely discerned, like ghosts of the past – though most clearly in darkness.

  It was the lights that revealed them. While the entire planet shone like a beacon in the void, lit by the glow of the hives, megacities and highways. The lights were brightest upon the old continents – the darker tracts of land marked where the seas had once been – or along the straight, unnaturally angular coastlines of the newer, artificial oceans.

  Ethereal green aurorae shimmered over the southern horizon, while great chem-storms shrouded the rad-scarred lands to the north, flickering with an almost constant strobe of lightning. It was not in those directions that the lander was headed, however. As its golden wings unfolded and the glow of re-entry faded from its thermal shields, it angled its descent towards the very roof of the world.

  Within the enclosed cabin, Sor Talgron sat alone, looking out of the viewport. One immense grey-gauntleted hand shielded his view from the shuttle’s interior illumination.

  ‘Refreshment, captain?’

  Sor Talgron glanced away from the port. The interior of the shuttle was all gently curved surfaces, subtle lighting and neutral tones. His synth-leather seat was large enough to accommodate his oversized bulk in considerable comfort. The remaining eleven passenger seats were un­occupied, though there were others on board. Even though he could not currently see them, he could taste their gene-forged scent in the recycled air – at once familiar and yet strange – as well as sense the faint hum of their armour.

  The attendant who had spoken was unnaturally tall and willowy, and her large, oval eyes were milky orbs, bereft of pupils. Gene-manipulation had given her this form, though for what purpose he could not fathom. Perhaps humans found her appearance pleasing to the eye. Perhaps they tampered with her genes simply because they could.

  ‘Sweet nectar? Amasec?’ she said, gesturing languidly at the refrigerated cart that hovered before her. ‘Something else?’

  He shook his head and turned back towards the viewport. He saw his own reflection there, frowning back at him. While he was not sure what a human would find appealing in the soft, pale features of the shuttle attendant, he knew what they would find unattractive about his own.

  His face was square and hard. Brutish. It was not the face of a scholar or a statesman. A lifetime of battle had flattened his features, and ugly scarring criss-crossed his face and scalp. His own role in the universe could not be mistaken. He was a warrior, a soldier, a killer. It was what he had been made for, a role he had been genetically altered to perform, and it was what he was good at. It was his purpose.

  Servo-motors in the joints of his armour whined as he leaned in close to the glass once more, blotting out the glare and his own grim reflection. His eyes scanned the world below as the shuttle’s descent levelled. He saw the burning thrusters of golden interceptor escorts flying off the wing tip, guiding them in.

  Sor Talgron stared unblinking, absorbing all that he saw. It was still some time before he would arrive at his destination, flying over the single largest man-made structure the universe had ever seen.
Even so, on the very outskirts of that immense continent-spanning mega-structure, it was apparent to Sor Talgron that it was being fundamentally altered.

  When he had left Terra the structure below had been a palace. He returned to find it well on the way to being transformed into a fortress.

  Sor Talgron walked through fire, flanked by Ahraneth, his standard bearer, and Dal Ahk, master of signal. All three wore dark crimson armour, the colour of pooled blood. The heavy war-plate had received the new Legion colours while en route to Ultramar, but it did not sit well with him. It felt like a betrayal of the Legion’s past.

  Around them, centuries of learning and wisdom were being destroyed, filling the scorched air with ash and the fluttering pages of burning books. Thousands of texts and codices were forever lost as librarium data banks were put to the torch, circuitry and silicon-based memory cores melting and crackling in the flames.

  Sor Talgron did not mourn this loss.

  The great chamber was filled with dust. Clearly, it had been abandoned after the Nikaea edict came into effect. It was highly probable that none had walked its halls since that time.

  Until today, when it had become a battleground.

  Flames licked at his pauldrons as he strode through the aftermath of the battle, coloured glass crunching underfoot. The immense glassaic windows that had looked down upon the cavernous Librarius atrium would have been an early casualty in the battle for the city of Massilea.

  Bodies turned to ragged meat by bolter fire lay splattered across the floor and against the walls. Four Word Bearers were dead, dropped by kill-shots. Several others were down, being attended by the Legion’s Apothecaries. Two bore fatal injuries and were given release, their prayers dying upon their lips. The gene-seed of the dead was extracted, reductors whirring, spitting bone and blood.

  A number of the fallen Ultramarines were not yet gone, but there were no XIII Legion Apothecaries to come to their aid, nor any living battle-brothers to drag them to safety. In another battalion, perhaps, their lives would have ended in torment after countless hours of agony and ritual debasement – but Sor Talgron would have none of that, and they were despatched without ceremony.

  They were the enemy, and he would do everything in his power to see them defeated, utterly and completely. But he could not hate them, and he would not see them tortured needlessly.