More tales of the Astra Militarum from Black Library
• LAST CHANCERS •
By Gav Thorpe
13TH LEGION
KILL TEAM
ANNIHILATION SQUAD
ARMAGEDDON SAINT
SHIELD OF THE EMPEROR
An omnibus edition of the novels Fifteen Hours by Mitchel Scanlon, Death World by Steve Lyons and Rebel Winter by Steve Parker
HONOURBOUND
A novel by Rachel Harrison
CADIA STANDS
A novel by Justin D Hill
CADIAN HONOUR
A novel by Justin D Hill
SHADOWSWORD
A novel by Guy Haley
BANEBLADE
A novel by Guy Haley
THE MACHARIAN CRUSADE
An omnibus edition of the novels Angels of Fire, Fist of Demetrius and
Fall of Macharius by William King
• GAUNT’S GHOSTS •
By Dan Abnett
THE FOUNDING
An omnibus edition containing books 1–3:
First and Only, Ghostmaker and Necropolis
THE SAINT
An omnibus edition containing books 4–7:
Honour Guard, The Guns of Tanith, Straight Silver and Sabbat Martyr
THE LOST
An omnibus edition containing books 8–11:
Traitor General, His Last Command, The Armour of Contempt and Only in Death
THE VICTORY PART ONE
An omnibus edition containing books 12–13:
Blood Pact and Salvation’s Reach
BOOK 14: THE WARMASTER
BOOK 15: ANARCH
Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer 40,000
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Epilogue
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Shield of The Emperor’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
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.
Prologue
The stamping and hollering of the ragged masses that lined the old sump was an assault on the senses, overwhelming in its intensity. Hundreds of feet drummed on ferrocrete. Hundreds of fists slammed against metal rails and bulkheads.
The smell was every bit as offensive, a cloying mixture of oil, rust, human sweat and fungal ork stench. Vapours rose from vents in the floor, a noxious fog that clung lazily to the lower steps leading up to the improvised gantries welded and bolted to the surrounding walls.
The source of both the noise and the stink was half-seen, the walls of the broad sump hall left in shadow by the flickering yellow lumen strips that hung from chains at its centre. A single shadowy entity of glaring eyes and open mouths poured derision and hatred down upon the prisoners led in chains before it.
The captives returned this loathing with a mixture of venom and dejection. Some of the soldiers, uniforms torn and weapons confiscated, glared back at the riotous horde; others hung their heads, eyes fixed on the swirling mist around their feet.
Those that escorted the prisoners held aloft trophies of various sorts – looted weapons, captured helmets, insignia of the Astra Militarum. They were dressed in scavenged pieces of flak armour and scraps of carapace, adorned with sharpened rivets, orkish glyph plates and chains. They wore bracelets and torqs remade from tank parts and underhive detritus, heads protected by an eclectic mix of tankers’ caps, horned ork bowls, Imperial-issue basinets, workers’ helmets and battered eco-suit domes.
Each of them had a plaque somewhere about them, on a cord about the neck, emblazoned on a chestplate or worn like a knight of old’s tilting shield between neck and shoulder. Wooden, plastek or metal, each bore the same device – a three-tongued flame of red.
They brought their captives, twenty-three that had survived the ambush, to stand a few metres from the stepped platform built into the far wall of the sump. The stage was populated with a score of disparate folk – a human menagerie of lowhive scum, uphive nobles and everything in between. Their dress was as varied as their origins, taking in the scope of oil-stained rags to multicoloured plumes, by way of factory coveralls, trooper fatigues, elegant gowns and long-tailed dress coats. Like the ambush party, every one of the elevated court wore a symbol of their allegiance, either painted on plaques, sewn into badges or embroidered directly into cloth.
A chair of extruded plastek dominated the centre of the dais. It was shaped like a fire, flames forming its back, twisting in imagined vortexes to make the legs and arms. The flames came together a couple of metres above the stage, forming a crude approximation of the Imperial aquila, eagle wings outspread. Despite the attempted art of its design, the red plastek finish was shiny and crass.
There was a space about the throne, a rough circle a few metres across, empty save for two figures. The first was a hulking brute, skin dark green, almost black, bucket-jawed and red-eyed. Its gold-braided frock coat was distended by slab muscles, a single-feathered hat propped upon a slanting cranium between pointed ears. Long arms hung at its sides, bracelets of spiked steel about the wrists, glinting rings encircling strong thick-knuckled fingers. Beside the ork was a much smaller companion, no taller than waist-high to the humans. Its skin was far paler, its clothes diminutive copies of the ork’s but even more extravagant in colour and jewellery. The feathers that adorned its cap were almost as tall as the wearer.
The throne’s incumbent was dressed in a silk-like, open-fronted robe of purple and black – patrician colours. His flesh was scarred in many places, his face a duality of white sca
r tissue on one side and livid weals on the other. The burn marks continued down to his chest, obscuring old tattoos.
From this came his name, which issued from the lips of his followers, sung softly at first.
‘The Burned Man. The Burned Man. The Burned Man.’
Voices rising in a crude harmony, the lyric rebounded from the metal walls.
‘The Burned Man! The Burned Man! The Burned Man!’
His title was like a prayer, and the savage mass around the walls reached out their hands to him, imploring him to turn an eye towards them.
The captives were thrust forward, presented to the Burned Man as prizes, the leader of the raiding company bowing low so that his plaited beard cut a furrow through the ankle-deep miasma.
Among the prisoners was one who was neither cowed by his surroundings nor belligerent. He wore the shirt and leggings of an Astra Militarum officer; his cap and coat had been taken. Even without such adornment his bearing conveyed his superiority more than any badge or epaulettes.
His gaze had been fixed upon the Burned Man from the moment of entering, oblivious to the clamouring threats that rained down. Eyes like two splinters of ice regarded the lord of the Acheron Sump with detached disdain.
The Burned Man leaned forward, eyes widening in surprise, orbs of white amongst the tortured flesh of his face. A savage grin broke his features.
The underhive warlord stood up and took a step, still staring at the Imperial officer. He spread his arms wide and turned left then right, sweeping his attention across the audience. Their singing broke down into a cacophony of shouts of praise and pleas for attentions.
‘Welcome to my domains… Colonel.’
One
OLD FRIENDS
I need to stop grinning, it’s starting to get weird, but my jaw won’t respond. I just look down at Colonel Schaeffer. Everything else has stopped. Arms, legs, tongue, brain. None of it’s working at the moment, like I’m some scuttling prey-thing caught in the gaze of a deadly hunter.
It’s his eyes, I swear. No one else looks into me the same way, piercing my soul without effort. Icicles as cold as the blood in his veins, pushing deeper and deeper with every breath we stand there, gazes locked.
My rictus is starting to unsettle the crowd, their tense silence stretching along with my lips and cheeks. They are waiting. Waiting for my proclamation.
To say I have mixed feelings would be like saying getting shot by a lascannon is a bit dangerous. I really thought he was dead. I mean, frag it, I thought I was dead for a while.
But he is standing there right in front of me, as real as anything. Here, in the depths of Acheron’s underhive, at least twenty kilometres from anything resembling Imperial authority. It’s a reminder that beyond the ork-towns, past broken habplexes and collapsed manufactory levels, the Imperium’s war for Armageddon rumbles on, a years-long stalemate that has consumed millions of lives already.
‘Kage.’
He utters my name like a curse, teeth gritted.
‘The Burned Man! The Burned Man!’ My company raise their voices in protest at the use of my given name.
Schaeffer doesn’t react, he just stands there watching me.
I feel his contempt and my smile fades as his scorn washes over me. The surprise, delight maybe, gives way to memory. The remembrance that this is Colonel Schaeffer of the 13th Penal Legion, the Last Chancers.
The memory that he is a total and utter bastard.
‘The Colonel!’ I say again, quieting the crowd with raised arms. I point to Schaeffer. ‘The man that plucked me from nothingness and threw me into every hell-war he could find. I wasn’t supposed to survive, was I, Colonel? Not the tyranid spore mine swarms of Ichar IV. Not the xenos infiltration of Coritanorum. Not the fire warriors of the t’au.’
I take a breath, eyes cast upwards to the ceiling and the mass of the mountainous hive city unseen above us.
‘And not here, in the fires of Acheron.’ I lower my gaze and meet his, refreshed by the thought of my elevation. ‘Yet, here I am. Preserved from death at each turn, and now raised above death by the hand of the Emperor Himself.’
I see his first reaction. A narrowing of the eyes, tightening of the jaw.
‘But you know that, of course. You came looking for me.’
‘Traitor!’ shouts one of the Guardsmen with him. I think it’s Lorii at first. She looks like Lorii.
Except she doesn’t. She looks nothing like Lorii. Pale skin, but not white. Dark hair. At least twenty centimetres shorter.
And Lorii is dead. It cut her open.
It used my hands to do it.
Another outburst of jeering rings down from the audience, but I just shrug.
‘A power far higher than you has judged me,’ I tell the anonymous trooper. ‘Judged me and delivered me from the abyss.’
‘The Burned Man! The Burned Man!’
It really doesn’t take much to get my followers worked up, and they have been in an agitation since news came that the orks were coming down through the south-west ducts. Hearing that we’ve captured an Imperial expedition has pushed them over the edge. I can barely see them but I can feel the pent-up anger, a seething, living thing that roars through their throats and glares through their eyes.
A thing that thirsts for blood.
At my left, Nazrek stirs, its bulk shifting as it feels the surge of emotion. A noise like gravel crushing flesh rumbles from the ork’s throat. Grot sniggers in its high-pitched way.
I really hadn’t expected it to be the Colonel. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have arranged this celebration. The crowd are too excitable. If I don’t calm everything down, someone’s going to throw something, and then someone else is going to copy them, and it’ll be a bloodbath.
It’s a fine line between stopping them killing these troopers and denying them vent for their growing anger. Anger that has swelled in recent days, for no reason I can uncover. Just a rage that has stirred up the orks, the rival warlords, even the Imperial Guard camped outside the hive. Everyone seems eager for a renewed war.
‘Here he is, delivered into my grasp by the Emperor,’ I tell my audience, reaching out a hand to Schaeffer and then closing my fingers into a fist. ‘For years he was the master. Now he is powerless. The balance of the scales has tipped in my favour, yes?’
There’s a roar of approval in answer.
‘But remember, I was once like those with him. They are his thralls, here in service to the God-Emperor. Dutiful, following orders, finding their place in the scheme of the Master of Mankind like all of us.’
Schaeffer’s brow furrows as he listens, but he remains silent.
‘Spare them our condemnation until we know their souls,’ I tell my people. My fist becomes a pointing finger, beckoning to the Colonel. ‘But this one, he comes with me.’
I stride from the stage without looking back. Nazrek lumbers after me, grunting, while Grot hurries behind. The rest of my lieutenants touch fingers to their flame-badges in salute as I pass.
My chambers are down a short corridor adjoining the sump vat. They used to be an overseer’s office, I think. An armoured door bars entry, but I leave it open and wait inside.
Karol and three of his gang bring the Colonel along the corridor. They escort him rather than manhandling him, reluctant to lay hands on Schaeffer. He looks like he is on a parade ground, back straight, arms swinging as though on marching drill.
His eyes are moving now, taking in everything, passing over me, looking at Nazrek, the guards, the environment. I back away from the door as he approaches, allowing him to enter. The outer chamber has a couple of benches and a small table, the walls bare plaster, cracked in places where the ancient hive city has settled over the ages.
I give Karol a nod and he leaves with the others. I close the door, giving the lock handle a spin.
‘T
hank the Emperor yo–’ I begin. Instinct causes me to duck and twist as I turn back towards the Colonel.
Schaeffer’s straightened fingers, intended for my throat, miss by a few centimetres. I guess he’s not here to bring me in alive.
I drive my knuckles into the point of his jaw. As he reels from the blow, I kick hard at the side of his knee, tripping him.
I back off, hands raised, rather than following up.
‘Hold on!’ I bark at him. ‘Give me a fraggin’ chance!’
Schaeffer stands up, flexing his fingers.
‘I knew you were not dead,’ he says. ‘I did not know how, but I knew it. No body, no proof.’
He steps to the right. I move to keep the table between us.
‘I’m a hard man to kill. That’s why you like me so much.’
There’s a flicker of acknowledgement but his gaze hardens.
‘When I heard there was a warlord called the Burned Man, I did not think much about it at first. Even so, it nagged at me. I had to see for myself whether it was true or not.’
‘And it’s true.’
He drops his shoulder as though he’s about to head right but I’m not fooled. I vault the table as he lunges around to the left.
‘You should know by now, Kage. You cannot run from me. You cannot hide from me.’
‘Learnt that the hard way,’ I laugh. The armoured door is behind me. No chance to turn. If I put my hand back to feel for the lock wheel the Colonel will be on me like a Narusian panther.
Escape isn’t the point. If I open the door, Nazrek and the others will come piling in.
Schaeffer interrupts my racing thoughts, a booted foot connecting with the lip of the table, skidding it towards my legs. He follows it, fist pulled back.
I roll, shoulder hitting the ferrocrete hard, jarring my neck. I come to my feet and keep going, jumping up onto one of the benches, throwing a kick back as he comes after me. My heel connects with his forehead but he bulls through the strike, seizing my knee and thigh.
I twist, trying to spin my other foot around. He ducks, blocking my boot with his shoulder. Tucking myself into a roll, I tumble free but land awkwardly on my head. I roll without looking, his stamp crashing into the floor a split second after my neck has moved.
Armageddon Saint - Gav Thorpe Page 1