by Guy Haley
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More tales of the Astra Militarum from Black Library
BANEBLADE
ASTRA MILITARUM
YARRICK: THE PYRES OF ARMAGEDDON
YARRICK: IMPERIAL CREED
YARRICK: CHAINS OF GOLGOTHA
HONOUR IMPERIALIS
STRAKEN
• THE MACHARIAN CRUSADE •
Book 1: ANGEL OF FIRE
Book 2: FIST OF DEMETRIUS
Book 3: FALL OF MACHARIUS
• GAUNT’S GHOSTS •
Book 1: FIRST AND ONLY
Book 2: GHOSTMAKER
Book 3: NECROPOLIS
Book 4: HONOUR GUARD
Book 5: THE GUNS OF TANITH
Book 6: STRAIGHT SILVER
Book 7: SABBAT MARTYR
Book 8: TRAITOR GENERAL
Book 9: HIS LAST COMMAND
Book 10: THE ARMOUR OF CONTEMPT
Book 11: ONLY IN DEATH
Book 12: BLOOD PACT
Book 13: SALVATION’S REACH
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Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer 40,000
Dramatis Personae
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Baneblade’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
Warhammer 40,000
It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Dramatis Personae
The Paragonian Seventh Super-Heavy Tank Company
The crew of the Baneblade Cortein’s Honour
Colaron Vor Artem Lo Bannick, Honoured Lieutenant
Epperaliant, Second Lieutenant Commsman
Karlok Shoam, Driver
Meggen, First Gunner
Jameron Lo Kalligen, Second Gunner
Demis Leonates, Third Gunner
Huwar Lo Ganlick, Third Loader
Dotrian Vaskigen, First Loader
Gollph, Second Loader
Mos Kolios, Tech-Adept Aspirant
The crew of the Shadowsword Lux Imperator
Hurnigen, Honoured Lieutenant
Vremont Jinereen, Second Lieutenant Commsman
Udolpho Lo Krast, Driver
Vando Hastilleen First gunner
Rastomar Kalligen, Third gunner
Starstan, Enginseer Tech-Adept
Some of the crew of the Baneblade Artemen Ultrus
Marteken, Honoured Lieutenant
Cholo, Second Lieutenant Commsman
Some of the crew of the command Hellhammer Ostrakhan’s Rebirth
Kandar Vor Ostrakhan Lo Hannick, Honoured Captain
Cholken, Second Lieutenant Commsman
Rosdosigen, First Gunner
Primus Brasslock, Enginseer
Chensormen, Commissar
The 477th Paragonian Foot
Lubin Lo Santelligen, Captain
Mazdaran, Lieutenant
Jonas Artem Lo Bannick, Lieutenant
Bosarain, Ensign
Suliban, Commissar
Lin Coass Lo Turneric, Medicae
Micz, Special Weapons Veteran Trooper
Carius Killek, Trooper
Anderick, Commsman
The Eighth Paragonian Super-Heavy Tank Company (Assault), ‘The Lucky Eights’
Ardoman Kosigian, Honoured Captain
Lo Parrigar
Gulinar, Second Lieutenant Commsman
The Black Templars, Adeptus Astartes
Meodric, Chaplain
Bastoigne, Emperor’s Champion
Adelard, Sword Brother
The court of Magor’s Seat
Missrine Huratal I, Governatrice
Dostain Huratal, Heir the Second
Pollein Huratal, Heir the Third
Oravan, Captain, Magorian Yellow Guard
The servants of Chaos
Lord Damien Trastoon, Emperor’s Children Traitor Legion
Dib, Herald of the Dark Prince
Others
Bannick Vardamon Vor Anselm Lo Bannick, Lord Colonel
Chapter One
The devil’s choice
IMPERIAL GOVERNOR’S PALACE, MAGOR’S SEAT
GERATOMRO
0458394.M41
They came always to the droning of priests. The rapturous, augmitter-amplified singing of a hundred Adeptus Ministorum clerics penetrated the doors to the Grand Hall of Magor with ease. A hundred yards away, on the other side of thick wood clad in bronze reliefs, and still Governatrice Missrine Huratal could hear them. They did not stop singing when the gong of audience, hung outside the Hall of Magor, sounded the customary four times to request admittance. They did not stop while Huratal made them wait.
Oravan, captain of Magor’s Yellow Guard, looked to her for permission to open the way to the delegation. She ignored him and bent down to fuss over her canids, her corpulent body shifting painfully in a throne that would once have swallowed her four times over with room to spare. The gong sounded again. Four sonorous notes. She ignored it. The canids yapped.
‘My lady!’ cried Oravan from the gat
es, hesitant in his concern that she leave the emissaries of the Emperor waiting so long. ‘The adepts demand admittance.’
From the floating crib behind Huratal, Heir the First Missrine II set up her squalling.
‘Stop your bellowing, foolish man,’ said Missrine, making her chins wobble. ‘You disturb our daughter.’ The rest of the court, arrayed in all their finery, stood in silence.
‘Mother, mother! The noise!’ squawked the vat-born infant. ‘It scares me so.’ Wet nurses scurried to the Heir the First’s bed, crooning and fussing over the thing within to no avail.
Many in the court looked to the floating crib from the corners of their eyes, their revulsion showing behind masks of deference.
Missrine II continued with her gurgling, half-human cries. Huratal gave her clone-daughter’s nurses a glower. With panicked faces they shushed harder, until Missrine II finally quieted.
The audience gong resonated to a third set of four notes.
The mistress of Geratomro plucked up Mikki, her favourite canid, from the barking mass at her feet. She kissed and petted it. ‘Shall we let them in, dear one?’ she said. ‘Shall we?’
Mikki yapped piercingly. Her sisters joined in.
‘My lady...’ said Oravan.
‘Oh, let them in,’ said Missrine with a slow wave.
Oravan saluted crisply and turned on his heel. At his command the gates were swung wide by the yellow-cloaked guard. A wave of blue incense smoke roiled through the door, thick and sudden as a sea fog. Thus shrouded, the Departmento Munitorum mission entered the heart of her domain. They strode up the aisle between the crowds of silent courtiers to the throne dais, expressions severe, as bold as if they owned the world. Her world. She curled her lip at their presumption.
There was a crowd large enough to intimidate a lesser soul than she. For all this show of strength, in reality there were only two – Borowik and Querol – who mattered out of the lot of them. Missrine kept her mind fixed on that. She had decided not to be cowed long since.
Borowik and Querol were opposites in every regard. Senior Assessor Borowik behaved like a conquering general and not the pen-pushing parasite among a billion similar creatures that he was. A low-gravity upbringing was apparent decades after he had been taken from his home. He was tall and thin to the point of cadaverousness. Callipers hissed on his arms and legs, supporting his delicate frame against Geratomro’s entirely average pull. Typical of the Imperium, to send one such as he here rather than to a low-density world or orbital habitat to which he might be better suited, thought Missrine. The Imperium was unthinking, unfeeling, a mess of illogicality and inefficiency. They treated her the same way, but there was no sense of kinship at her and Borowik’s shared misfortunes; Huratal thought only of her own power. Her jaw set harder. Thoughts like that were good. They steeled her resolve at what she must do. Heir the Second Dostain had laid it all out to her in impressive detail. She hated to listen to the boy. He was weak-willed and feeble. But in this matter he was right; there was no other choice.
Tithemaster Querol was short, tubby and relatively young to Borowik’s emaciated antiquity. Where Borowik carried a metal shako loosely under his arm, Querol clutched a data-slate as tightly as a child holds a comfort blanket. He hurried along beside his master, taking two steps to his every one. Where Borowik kept his gaze fixed on Huratal, Querol’s went everywhere but the Governatrice, most often lighting on Borowik in an obvious need for the older man’s approval. Borowik studiously ignored him.
An army of black-armoured guards, modified savants, robed functionaries and servitor automata followed them – and the damn priests, of course: a clanking, mumbling, wailing parade of Imperial power. The score of middle-ranking Adeptus Administratum bureaucrats that afflicted her planet skulked in the centre of the crowd in a pathetic bid for anonymity, for it was they who had summoned the assessor, an act of craven treachery which she had been powerless to punish. She recited their names to herself. She would forget not a single one.
Borowik and Querol continued their mismatched march down the aisle of the Hall of Magor, the former stalking like a bird, the latter scampering in the manner of a rodent between the massed assemblage of Huratal’s court. The nobility and officers of her government were numerous, and resplendent in their plumes and breastplates, dresses and lofty headgear, most of them large, for weight was a sign of status upon Geratomro. To them Borowik gave no attention, while Querol stole furtive, nervy glances at their well-fleshed faces.
The parade stopped with a crescendo, the hymns, chants and proclamations ceasing in perfect time with Borowik’s last footfall. The delegation arrayed themselves at the foot of the stairs leading up to Huratal’s throne with practised precision. Servitor power plants puttered in the uneasy silence. Servo-skulls whined overhead, sweeping the chamber and its occupants with wide-spread augur beams for who knew what purpose. A measurement of hats? A survey of powder usage? A cross referencing of tooth size? Mikki yelped as Huratal’s hands tightened around her. The demands of the Adeptus Administratum for pointless information was one of the many things the Governatrice would not miss.
The court herald stepped forwards to the foot of the dais steps, his round head lost in the layered ruffs and lace-trimmed lapels of his yellow uniform.
‘Senior Assessor Borowik!’ he proclaimed. ‘Tithemaster Querol! Arrived this day from the deeps of space and the peril of the warp, here to treat with our most blessed and wise lady, Governatrice Missrine Huratal, of the House of Magor, of the line of Magor, planetary governor of Geratomro, mistress of all human souls within the bounds of the system of Gerat by holy fiat of the God-Emperor of mankind. Queen under the sun. Our queen.’
Trumpets blew. The herald rolled his parchment and bowed so low to his lady that the yellow plumes of his helmet brushed the floor. He stood and waited to be dismissed with a look of nervous adoration. She nodded, generously she thought, to show that he had done well.
Borowik waited with stony patience for the herald to finish, his unblinking, deep-set eyes not leaving Huratal’s face once. Such impertinence from any other man would be met with blinding. But not he! No, Borowik thought himself above her. He would learn.
‘Lady Governatrice, your tithe is overdue!’ Borowik said. His powerful voice contrasted with his weak body, and Huratal’s determination wavered. With the Imperial authorities, it was always what you could not see that was important, and Borowik’s voice was an uncomfortable reminder of that. ‘You flout the primary and only rule of planetary governership. You refuse the tithe. Release the military assets owed or pay the consequences. This is your only warning.’
Silence but for the scratch and whir of the autoscribe embedded in the torso of Borowik’s Keeper of Records, and the whisper of creamy paper folding onto the floor, every word recorded. Huratal’s misgivings burned up in the fire of her anger. The autoscribe caught up and fell quiet. How dare he, this ink-stained drone, threaten her? Huratal made a dismissive noise in her throat. She levered her huge bulk forwards to better glare at her challengers, dislodging Mikki and several cushions. Gripping the armrests with her chubby hands, she spoke, her chins rippling with her anger.
‘In the wilds of Geratomro, in the mountains near this palace, in fact,’ she said, ‘there is said to dwell a puckish creature no taller than a child and covered in hair.’
A servitor piped a shrill whistle for silence. Ordering her, in her own throne room.
‘I fail to see the relevance,’ said Borowik. ‘I come with but one command – obey the High Lords, or the light of the Emperor will turn from your world.’
‘They call it the Devil-in-the-bush,’ she continued. Borowik’s fingers curled around his hat and his eyes narrowed, but he held his peace. ‘Not a thing of this world or any other, but perhaps from somewhere else. It is dangerous, as such uncanny things can be, but not to the body. Rarely is it seen by day. Sometimes at night. But almost alway
s by dusk or dawn. It dances, they say, on the line of the night and the day.
‘The story goes that those who meet this fiend are offered a choice between two seemingly unconnected things,’ she continued. ‘Single words only, usually. Such things as “heartfelt or stones” it might say. “Money or eggs”, “time or deliverance”. It has deep brown eyes wiser than those of any human, and a grin of delight plays across its face throughout every encounter. In the legends – they are all the same, since such beings always have the wiles to force the unwary to undergo the prescribed course of the story – one cannot look away from those eyes until one chooses. They seem to grow bigger and bigger until they swallow up the world, and the victim – make no mistake, lord senior assessor, those that the Devil-in-the-bush meets are its victims in every way – feels they will be lost inside, and blurts out a choice to avoid that fate. At which point the Devil-in-the-bush laughs, skips away along the line between the night and the day, and vanishes. “Spice or lace”, “Earth or sea”, “Matter or vapour”.’
‘Heresy!’ muttered a priest. Episcope Chulux, caught in an unenviable position between his Planetary Governor and outraged Imperial authority, shushed him and gave Huratal a queasy smile.
‘And what is your meaning in reciting this charming, if possibly heretical, folk tale, my lady?’ asked Borowik.
‘A myth, that is all,’ said Huratal with deadly sweetness. ‘A story as likely to be found on this world as on any other, and meaningless.’
Borowik opened his mouth. Huratal held up her hand.
‘We have not finished! Pray let us conclude our argument. Inscrutable though they sound, the choices the Devil-in-the-bush offers most definitely have a bearing on the chooser. Their life will be changed, they can be assured of that. For but a few, a very fortunate few, one of these choices will precipitate a cascade of events that bring great reward twined inextricably with unbearable loss. The other might simply see the chooser dead. Either way, the chooser is doomed to sorrow from the outset. The outcome of neither choice offered is predictable, and very rarely desirable. To we of Geratomro, the legend gives the aphorism of “the devil’s choice”. Can you guess what that might mean to us, my lord assessor?’