The vox-link in her newly repainted helmet squawked into life, the tinny hiss of a ground controller. ‘Wing Commander Hagen. Heldrake spotted over the Olympax Range. Second Wing are already engaged but require assistance.’
‘Ragwing?’ she replied hopefully. Her exploits against the daemon engine – along with a recommendation from the new planetary governor – had helped secure her promotion and the legend of the beast, along with the name she had given it, was the talk of the Navy mess halls.
‘Affirmative, wing commander,’ came the crackling reply.
‘Back in formation, Third Wing,’ she said, switching to an open channel.
She looked out of her cockpit to see all eight of her fellow pilots slotting in behind her. Another set of eyes watched on, large and reptilian where once was the image of a pair of hawk eyes, set above a fanged maw painted over the hooked beak. Gone too were the representations of grey feathers, replaced by the likeness of green scales.
‘We have a dragon to slay.’
227961.M41 / The Emerald Cave. Atika, Pythos
It moved on all fours, bounding over the corpses yet to be removed from the killing field and darting between the scorched and mangled ruins of tanks and flyers. Occasionally it would stop to look more closely at one of the abandoned vehicles, sometimes scoring a strange mark into the hull, other times removing some component and placing it carefully into the pack it carried on its back. In the main it ignored them, intent on recovering what it had come down so deep to find.
Its inhuman eyes could see perfectly well in the darkness, but it wore a lamp fashioned from Pythosian crystal strapped to its forehead. To any onlooker it would have seemed as if a miner strayed too far from the pit tunnels, but the only eyes that looked upon it were dead ones and what it sought was far more important – to it, at least – than mere jewels or rocks.
The red beam of light refracted from the emeralds in the wall as it turned to look around, casting the entire chamber in a strange, dull hue. Spotting what it had come for, it emitted a loud exclamation of success and leapt from wreck to wreck, seemingly heedless to its own wellbeing as it slammed against the hard metal.
Halting atop the sheared hull of a super-heavy, it looked along its length, making certain that it had located its quarry. Jumping down, it ran the back of a hairy arm along an armoured fairing, wiping away the coating of soot and daemonic residues. Shining its lamp upon it, two words carefully scripted in High Gothic were revealed: Traitor’s Bane.
With another screech of joy, K’Cee pulled a wrench from his backpack and set to work at the long task he had ahead of him.
??????.M?? / Somewhere in the Eye of Terror
The heavy door to the cell creaked open slowly, sending two of its occupants scurrying to the corners. If they could, the other two beings in the cell might have done likewise but, fused together and suspended from chains made from an unbreakable warpforged metal, that was beyond their current abilities.
Abaddon stepped into the darkened prison, the amber eyes of one of the xenos blanks regarding him with fear. On the other side of the cell, the female human blank, naked and caked in filth, snarled like a cornered beast. The Warmaster ignored them both, focused solely on who – or, more accurately what – was hanging in the centre of the cell.
His powerful arms bound at the wrists, Epimetheus’s similarly shackled feet hung a metre above the cold stone floor of the dungeon. His skin was a ruin of scar tissue, his black carapace having been removed early in his captivity, and his eyes and mouth having been sewn shut with fibre hewn from the sinew of daemons. Behind his sealed lips sat the void where his tongue used to be, Abaddon making good on his promise at the time of capture, and a clean surgical wound ran along the side of his throat where his progenoids had been extracted.
The price in oaths and fealty that the Warmaster had received from Fabius Bile and his ilk in exchange for this particular genetic material was immeasurable. When next he launched a Black Crusade upon the Imperium Abaddon would not only reap the benefits of that loyalty but, with the blessing of the Four, have new and more powerful troops at his disposal.
And, if his ultimate plan should come to fruition… No, similar ventures had been attempted in the past and come to naught. The Warmaster dealt in practicalities and actualities, not what ifs.
Sensing a presence in the room, Epimetheus twisted on his chains, his enhanced physiology still granting him the strength to do so in spite of the unknowable amount of time he had been in captivity. As he spun above the ground, the true extent of the horrors wrought upon Epimetheus became apparent, driving a smirk to Abaddon’s lips.
His limbs removed, the third blank was grafted to Epimetheus’s back, one last failsafe should the emasculated Grey Knight slip his bonds and attempt to escape. The man was barely alive, the dull eyes set below a heavy brow barely open, and tubes protruded from holes bored in his torso through which flowed dark liquids, sustaining his hellish existence.
Abaddon drew close to his captive, causing both Epimetheus and the symbiotic blank to flinch. The Grey Knight’s nostrils flared. Despite being deprived of most of his senses, he could tell that the Warmaster was near.
Leaning in close to his prisoner’s ear, Abaddon whispered, ‘Soon, Epimetheus. Soon.’
The breath being forced from Epimetheus’s nose became grunts, and he pulled and twisted more forcefully at his bonds causing the blank joined to him to murmur a plaintive wail.
Exiting the cell, the Warmaster left the Grey Knight to struggle against his restraints, safe in the knowledge that he would never be able to break them no matter how long he hung there.
Abaddon had waited ten thousand years to depose the Corpse-Emperor and claim the Throne of Terra. To break one of the founding brothers of the Grey Knights, to have him bend his knee in unswerving allegiance, the Warmaster could wait for all eternity.
About the Authors
Andy Hoare is the author of the Space Marine Battles novel The Hunt for Voldorius, as well as Commissar and a number of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 short stories. He spent many years working in the Games Workshop Design Studio and now writes background and rules for Forge World’s Imperial Armour and Horus Heresy books.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Betrayer and The First Heretic, as well as the novella Aurelian and the audio drama Butcher’s Nails, for the same series. He also wrote The Talon of Horus, the popular Night Lords series, the Space Marine Battles book Helsreach, the Grey Knights novel The Emperor’s Gift and numerous short stories. He lives and works in Northern Ireland.
Steve Parker is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Deathwatch, Rynn’s World, Gunheads and Rebel Winter, along with the novella Survivor and a plethora of short stories featuring the Deathwatch kill-team Talon Squad, the Crimson Fists and various Astra Militarum regiments. He lives and works in Scotland.
Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Deathfire and Vulkan Lives, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio drama Censure. His novella Feat of Iron was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, including Rebirth, the Space Marine Battles novel Damnos, and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Time of Legends novel The Great Betrayal. He lives and works in Nottingham, and has a rabbit.
Chris Wraight is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Scars, the novella Brotherhood of the Storm and the audio drama The Sigillite. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written 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 Battle of the Fang. Additionally, he has many Warhammer novels to his name, including the Time of Legends novel Master of Dragons, which forms part of the War of Vengeance series. Chris lives and works near Bristol, in south-west England.
Rob Sanders is the author of ‘The Serpent Be
neath’, a novella that appeared in the New York Times bestselling Horus Heresy anthology The Primarchs. His other Black Library credits include the Warhammer 40,000 titles Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarius, Legion of the Damned, Atlas Infernal and Redemption Corps and the audio drama The Path Forsaken, along with the Warhammer Archaon duology, Everchosen and Lord of Chaos. He has also written many Quick Reads for the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in the city of Lincoln, UK.
Guy Haley is the author of Space Marine Battles: Death of Integrity, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedor and Baneblade, and the novellas The Eternal Crusader, The Last Days of Ector and Broken Sword, for Damocles. 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 lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.
Ben Counter is one of Black Library’s most popular Warhammer 40,000 authors, with two Horus Heresy novels to his name – Galaxy in Flames and Battle for the Abyss. He is the author of the Soul Drinkers series and The Grey Knights Omnibus. For Space Marine Battles he has written The World Engine and Malodrax, and has turned his attention to the Space Wolves with the novella Arjac Rockfist: Anvil of Fenris and a number of short stories. He is a fanatical painter of miniatures, a pursuit which has won him his most prized possession: a prestigious Golden Demon award. He lives in Portsmouth, England.
Domiciled in the East Midlands, C Z Dunn is the author of the Space Marine Battles novel Pandorax, the novellas Crimson Dawn and Dark Vengeance and the audio dramas Trials of Azrael, Ascension of Balthasar, Terror Nihil, Bloodspire and Malediction, as well as several short stories.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Hunt for Voldorius first published in 2011.
Helsreach first published in 2011.
Rynn’s World first published in 2011.
Fall of Damnos first published in 2011.
Battle of the Fang first published in 2011.
Legion of the Damned first published in 2012.
Wrath of Iron first published in 2012.
Death of Integrity first published in 2013.
Malodrax first published in 2013.
Pandorax first published in 2013.
This eBook edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Cover illustration by Jon Sullivan, Kai Lim of Imaginary Friends Studios and Clint Langley.
Internal Illustrations, Maps and Icons by Rosie Edwards, Darius Hinks, Helge C Balzer, Sam Lamont, John Michelbach, Chris Wraight, Adrian Wood, Rhys Pugh, John Blanche, Neil Hodgson, Carl Dafforn and Steve Parker.
Space Marine Battles: The Novels Volume I © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Space Marine Battles: The Novels Volume I, Space Marine Battles, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78251-998-0
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.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 351