Black Library Events Anthology 2018-19

by Warhammer 40K

  His scalp was shaven and scarred, one eye a burning red cybernetic replacement. Uriel remembered firing the shot that cost him that eye.

  'Honsou…' said Uriel.

  'Tell me,' said the Iron Warrior, 'did you ever think you'd return to the Eye of Terror?'

  Uriel could not be on Medrengard.

  This was not Honsou.

  It could not be.

  But now the searing fire in Uriel's heart had a focus.

  The litany of Honsou's crimes was a legacy of slaughter; planets razed, entire populations murdered, and bloodshed so prodigious it seemed inconceivable a single individual could have orchestrated it all.

  Honsou's death was long overdue, but he had managed to escape the depths of Calth and flee Ultramar on the corpse-hauler Shendao. Astrogators and warp-divinators surmised he had taken the captured ship to the Eye of Terror.

  But what had become of him after that was a mystery.

  Most likely he was dead, dust and bones upon one of the hundreds of battlefields around the Cicatrix Maledictum.

  No, this could not be Honsou.

  And yet...

  Uriel roared and charged the Iron Warrior.

  The figure that had once been Idaeus rose to its feet and awaited his attack. The Iron Warrior dropped the black-bladed axe and spread his arms in a gesture of empty challenge.

  Uriel's fist smashed into Honsou's cheek, snapping his head back with ferocious impact. Honsou took the blow stoically, reeling from a second thunderous punch.

  Blood coated the Iron Warrior's face in a grotesque mask, but he wasn't fighting back.

  Uriel bore Honsou to the ground, pummelling him as they fell. His fists slammed down again and again. Uriel reached for a weapon, something to finish his foe once and for all.

  His fingers closed on cold steel, and he pushed himself upright. His breathing rasped hard in his chest and he looked down to see he had picked up Honsou's black-bladed axe.

  Its weight was perfectly balanced, the grip textured for his hands. Uriel felt the power within the blade, a power so great it could slay gods.

  He swung the weapon wide, arcing it up to bring down in executioner's stroke. The blade growled in pleasure, the bloodthirst at its heart eager for the kill.

  Uriel roared and hurled the weapon away.

  Honsou laughed and spat a wad of blood.

  'You never could kill me,' said Honsou.

  'There's nothing of you here to kill.'

  'So sure of that, are you?'

  'Yes,' said Uriel. 'Your face'

  'What about it? I grant you it's not as handsome as it once was, but I've seen worse. Trust me, a lot worse.'

  'You were once a Space Marine but even a Space Marine's skull should have been pulped by the beating I just gave you.'

  Honsou retrieved his axe, but made no move to attack Uriel.

  They circled one another wanly beneath the light of the black sun. The blasted hinterlands stretching out in every direction were bleached of all life by the deathly sun, bereft of colour and signs of habitation.

  Nothing could live here; nothing natural, anyway.

  Scattered across Medrengard, conclaves of muttering heretic tech-priests laboured within bloodied forge-temples, and technovirus-infused monsters of flesh and steel roamed its junkyard forest of rust and debris.

  Carrion-scrappers circled over ancient battlefields while the bones of the dead drifted on the sands of pale deserts.

  In the distance; Uriel saw an ironclad mountain rise from the wasteland and climb to the sky with the ratcheting boom of impossibly deep world-gears. Squatting at the base of the mountain was a damned city of blighted strongholds, protected from attack behind layered defences of basalt walls and forests of razorwire, and overlooked by cliffs of artillery batteries.

  Dark thoughts crowded Uriel's mind at the sight of this nightmarish world, recollections of gut-wrenching confessions made to Chaplain Clausel in the candlelit gloom of the Reclusiam aboard the Vae Victus.

  Enclosed in the dark folds of blood-rich flesh...

  The essence of his soul grafted to another...

  Unfleshed...

  'Memories of this place haunted me for years after Pasanius and I returned to Macragge,' said Uriel.

  'I'm amazed they didn't just shoot the pair of you down as soon as you appeared at the gates,' said Honsou.

  'A Grey Knight by the name of Leodegarius tested our faith and flesh on Salinas,' said Uriel. 'He declared us free of taint, and the word of such a captain carries great weight.'

  'Still...' said Honsou. 'Can they ever really know? Can you? The Savage Morticians opened you up, worked their dark arts in the core of your being. How can you be sure they didn't plant some little piece of Chaos to bring back with you? The ways of the Archenemy are insidious, you know.'

  Uriel shook his head, amused by Honsou's transparency. 'Now I know you're not him,' said Uriel. 'Honsou would never be so blatant. He would probe for weakness, test my defences and flank me when I least expected it. You're not him. I know that for a fact, but I cannot look at you without the same hatred I felt all those years ago.'

  'Hatred is an underrated emotion,' said Honsou. 'It was all that sustained me when I was at the bottom of the wheel's turn. It gave me focus when everyone wanted to crush me.'

  'There are better emotions than hate for that.'

  'None as pure.'

  Uriel knew he could never reason with such a monster. Some souls had fallen too far into darkness ever to return to the Emperor's light. Too blinded by their own evil or ignorance, they were lost in a swamp of their own making.

  Honsou had become a figure of evil legend in Ultramar, his deeds still spoken of in hushed whispers for fear that the mere utterance of his name might reach him in some far-flung daemon world and draw him back.

  His Bloodborn invasion of Ultramar had been repulsed, but only at the cost of millions of lives and almost a third of the Chapter's warriors.

  But seeing him here now - wherever here was - Uriel saw the truth of his once-nemesis.

  'I used to fear you,' said Uriel.

  'I am fearsome,' agreed Honsou.

  'Not that way. I mean in the sense that you were a dark mirror of my potential, the final destination of the path I was on. You say hate sustained you? Discipline sustained me. The rules I broke, the edicts of the Codex Astartes I flouted? Ignoring them was the quick and easy choice. The hard choice was doing the right thing, doing what needed to be done no matter how difficult. That's what you could never grasp, because you served only one master. Yourself. And that's why I no longer fear what you represent. I am a servant of the Golden Throne, and I am stronger for that.'

  'You're still a servant, though,' said Honsou. 'And servant's just another word for slave.'

  'You never did understand me, did you?' said Uriel. 'Even with everything you learned from the Newborn, you never understood. You had the genetics, the armour and the weapons, but you were never really a Space Marine. You were not trained among equals, never took strength from bonds of brotherhood, and you never learned how much stronger those bonds make us.'

  'Then illuminate me, O wise one.'

  'To be truly free, you need discipline'

  'That doesn't make any sense.'

  'For every freedom you desire, there is a constant discipline you must implement until it becomes so ingrained a habit that it is as natural as breathing,' said Uriel, seeing a rolling cloud of dust appear over each horizon.

  Approaching vehicles, a lot of them.

  His words grew stronger as he spoke, the truth of them armouring him in certainty.

  'From the physical to the emotional to the strategic and the tactical, the Codex Astartes taught me how to apply that universal formula to every aspect of my life.'

  The cloud on the horizon was breaking up now, and between blustering squalls of ferrous dust, Uriel saw snatches of an armoured host of unstoppable force converging on him, like a noose around the neck of a condemned heretic.


  'So how does any of that help you now?' asked Honsou, looking past Uriel to the approaching iron tide. 'All the discipline in the world won't save you from what's coming.'

  Uriel looked straight into the black sun, stark against the sky like a cyclopean eye staring down at him. It blinked, and the edges rippled with a smoky umbra. The whiteness of the sky around it gleamed oddly, like spots of light reflecting on ivory plates of ceramite.

  'Of course it will,' he said.

  'How?'

  'By not giving in. That's it, isn't it? You are my weakness given voice. You want me to give in, to abandon my principles in the face of pain and adversity, but I will not. Whatever this place is, whatever is approaching, I will endure it. You think I will break here? I will not. You think I will succumb to you? That will never happen.'

  Honsou shrugged and backed away from him as the horde of diabolical war-machines roared out of the dust towards Uriel.

  They came as hulking, spike-hulled tanks and biomechanical constructs of brass and bone, bearing banners of flayed skin and leering, blood-stained mutants that clung to their hulls like psychotic parasites.

  Uriel could not hope to fight such numbers and win, but that he would fight was what truly mattered.

  'You're going to die here, Ventris.'

  Uriel looked back to the host of snarling daemon-vehicles surrounding him. He knew the faces of the men clinging to them; they were the faces of every foe he had ever killed, and the faces of enemies he had yet to kill.

  Whatever this was, whatever nightmare he had fallen into, he knew it had not broken him. In the face of pain, dark memories and temptations to weakness, he remained true to himself.

  The words of the Codex Astartes returned to Uriel, as they always did in times of hardship.

  'The warrior who acts out of honour cannot fail. His duty is honour itself. Even his death - if it is honourable - is a reward and can be no failure, for it has come through duty. Seek honour as you act, therefore, and you will know no fear.'

  'Fine words,' said Honsou with a grin as the guns of every one of the clanking monstrosities lowered to aim right at Uriel's heart. 'But just remember one thing.'

  'What's that?'

  'You chose this. All of it.'

  Uriel's world exploded in pain and fire.

  But, mercifully, it was short.

  The chamber echoed with the last of his screams.

  Gore coated the gleaming ceramic tiles of its walls. It dribbled in thick ropes from the slab upon which the gene- wrought form of Uriel Ventris lay.

  Whirring autoclaves vented superheated steam, and the blades of auto-chirurgeons were bright red and sticky with congealed, hyper-oxygenated blood.

  Hissing censers billowed with scented fumes, and choirs of chanting acolytes stood in shadowed alcoves around the chamber's perimeter.

  Red-robed figures in blood-stiffened aprons retreated from the slab, their chimeric features hidden within their shadowed hoods.

  Two others descended from the glass-fronted gallery above, their steps leaden and their hearts filled with foreboding.

  They approached the slab, the body upon it already cooling as its vital functions stilled.

  Auto-lungs wheezed one last time and then ceased their rhythmic rise and fall. Bio-monitors flatlined and the jagged sine-waves of brain activity plateaued.

  'Did it work?' asked the first figure, a skull-faced giant in black armour.

  His companion, plated in ivory and cobalt, consulted the chattering machinery, inloading data streams to his gauntlet.

  'He is dead,' he said at last. 'So, yes, it worked.'

  'Now what do we do?'

  'Now we wait,' said Apothecary Selenus. 'And we pray he crosses the Rubicon.'

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Darius Hinks' first novel, Warrior Priest, won the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for best newcomer. Since then he has ventured into the Warhammer 40,000 universe with the novels Blackstone Fortress, Mephiston: Blood of Sanguinius, Mephiston: Revenant Crusade and the Space Marine Battles novella Sanctus, and has carved a bloody swathe through the Warhammer world with Island of Blood, Sigvald, Razumov's Tomb and the Orion trilogy. He has recently made his first foray into the Age of Sigmar with the novella Warqueen.

  John French is the author of several Horus Heresy stories including the novels Praetorian of Dorn, Tallarn and Slaves to Darkness, the novella The Crimson Fist, and the audio dramas Dark Compliance, Templar and Warmaster. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written Resurrection and Incarnation for The Horusian Wars and two tie-in audio dramas - the Scribe award-winning Agent of the Throne: Blood and Lies and Agent of the Throne: Truth and Dreams. John has also written the Ahriman series and many short stories.

  Guy Haley is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Titandeath, Wolfsbane and Pharos, the Primarchs novels Corax: Lord of Shadows, Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia, and the Warhammer 40,000 novels Dark Imperium, Dark Imperium: Plague War, The Devastation of Baal, Dante, Baneblade, Shadowsword, Valedor and Death of Integrity. He has also written Throneworld and The Beheading for The Beast Arises series. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He has also written stories set in the Age of Sigmar, included in War Storm, Ghal Maraz and Call of Archaon. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

  David Annandale is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Ruinstorm and The Damnation of Pythos, and the Primarchs novels Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar and Vulkan: Lord of Drakes. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine, the Yarrick series, several stories involving the Grey Knights, including Warden of the Blade and Castellan, as well as titles for The Beast Arises and the Space Marine Battles series. For Warhammer Age of Sigmar he has written Neferata: Monarch of Blood. David lectures at a Canadian university, on subjects ranging from English literature to horror films and video games.

  Rachel Harrison is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novel Honourbound, and the short stories 'Execution' and 'A Company of Shadows', featuring the character Commissar Severina Raine. She has also written the short story 'Dirty Dealings' for Necromunda, as well as a number of other Warhammer 40,000 short stories including 'The Third War' and 'Dishonoured'.

  Chris Wraight is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Scars and The Path of Heaven, the Primarchs novels Leman Russ: The Great Wolf and Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris, the novellas Brotherhood of the Storm and Wolf King, and the audio drama The Sigillite. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written The Lords of Silence, Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne, Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor's Legion, the Space Wolves novels Blood of Asaheim and Stormcaller, and the short story collection Wolves of Fenris, as well as the Space Marine Battles novels Wrath of Iron and War of the Fang. Additionally, he has many Warhammer novels to his name, including the Warhammer Chronicles novel Master of Dragons, which forms part of the War of Vengeance series. Chris lives and works in Bradford-on-Avon, in south-west England.

  Graham McNeill has written many Horus Heresy novels, including The Crimson King, Vengeful Spirit and his New York Times bestsellers A Thousand Sons and the novella The Reflection Crack'd, which featured in The Primarchs anthology. Graham's Ultramarines series, featuring Captain Uriel Ventris, is now six novels long, and has close links to his Iron Warriors stories, the novel Storm of Iron being a perennial favourite with Black Library fans. He has also written the Forges of Mars trilogy, featuring the Adeptus Mechanicus. For Warhammer, he has written the Warhammer Chronicles trilogy The Legend of Sigmar, the second volume of which won the 2010 David Gemmell Legend Award.

  A Black Library Publication

  This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

  Black Library Events Anthology 2018/19 © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. Black Library
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  ISBN 13: 978-1-78496-863-2

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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