Black Legion Read online

  Backlist

  More Warhammer 40,000 stories from Black Library

  The Beast Arises

  1: I AM SLAUGHTER

  2: PREDATOR, PREY

  3: THE EMPEROR EXPECTS

  4: THE LAST WALL

  5: THRONEWORLD

  6: ECHOES OF THE LONG WAR

  7: THE HUNT FOR VULKAN

  8: THE BEAST MUST DIE

  9: WATCHERS IN DEATH

  10: THE LAST SON OF DORN

  11: SHADOW OF ULLANOR

  12: THE BEHEADING

  Space Marine Battles

  WAR OF THE FANG

  A Space Marine Battles book, containing the novella The Hunt for Magnus and the novel Battle of the Fang

  THE WORLD ENGINE

  An Astral Knights novel

  DAMNOS

  An Ultramarines collection

  DAMOCLES

  Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Ultramarines novellas Blood Oath, Broken Sword, Black Leviathan and Hunter’s Snare

  OVERFIEND

  Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Salamanders novellas Stormseer, Shadow Captain and Forge Master

  ARMAGEDDON

  Contains the Black Templars novel Helsreach and novella Blood and Fire

  Legends of the Dark Millennium

  ASTRA MILITARUM

  An Astra Militarum collection

  ULTRAMARINES

  An Ultramarines collection

  FARSIGHT

  A Tau Empire novella

  SONS OF CORAX

  A Raven Guard collection

  SPACE WOLVES

  A Space Wolves collection

  Visit blacklibrary.com for the full range of novels, novellas, audio dramas and Quick Reads, along with many other exclusive products

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  Warhammer 40,000

  Terra

  Part One

  Weapons

  Among the Occluded Stars

  A Legion’s Graveyard

  Where Past and Present Meet

  Vengeful Spirit

  Ezekarion

  Vindicta

  Part Two

  Outrunning the Storm

  A Garden of Bones

  Ghosts of the Warp

  Sacrifice

  Templars

  Void War

  Hammer and Anvil

  Lord of Hosts

  Silence

  Terra

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Night Lords: The Omnibus’

  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

  In alphabetical order

  amurael enka

  Black Legion warrior, born of Cthonia. Master of the Flesh Harvest. Former Medicae Quintus of the Sons of Horus. Tenth of the Ezekarion.

  ashur-kai qezramah

  Black Legion warrior, born of Terra. Sorcerer and voidseer of the warship Vengeful Spirit. Sixth of the Ezekarion.

  ceraxia

  Mistress of the Arsenal, born of Sacred Mars. Former Mechanicum governess of the Niobia Halo outpost at Gallium. Seventh of the Ezekarion.

  delvarus, ‘lord of mongrels’

  Black Legion warrior, born of Novus Principa. Warchief of the Riven.

  ezekyle abaddon

  Black Legion warrior, born of Cthonia. Master of the Black Legion. Commander of the warship Vengeful Spirit.

  falkus kibre

  Black Legion warrior, born of Cthonia. Commander of the Aphotic Blade. First of the Ezekarion.

  ilyaster faylech

  Death Guard warrior, born of Barbarus. Apothecary of the Death Guard of the Kryptarus warband.

  iskandar khayon

  Black Legion warrior, born of Prospero. Lord of the Ashen Dead, and Blade of Abaddon. Third of the Ezekarion.

  lheorvine ukris, ‘firefist’

  Black Legion warrior, born of Nuvir’s Landing. Commander of the War God’s Maw. Fifth of the Ezekarion.

  moriana, ‘the weeping maiden’

  Human prophetess, born of Jaragh. Twelfth of the Ezekarion.

  nagual

  Daemon, born from the Sea of Souls. Bound to Iskandar Khayon.

  nefertari

  Eldar huntress, Trueborn of Commorragh. Bloodward to Iskandar Khayon.

  sargon eregesh

  Black Legion warrior, born of Colchis. Prelate of the Long War. Second of the Ezekarion.

  saronos

  Warp Ghosts warrior of unknown origins. Captain of the warship Tartaran Wraith.

  telemachon lyras, ‘the masqued prince’

  Black Legion warrior, born of Chemos. Lord of the Shrieking Masquerade and Champion of the Black Legion. Fourth of the Ezekarion.

  thagus daravek, ‘the lord of hosts’

  Death Guard warrior, born of Barbarus. Warlord of the Kryptarus warband.

  tokugra

  Daemon, born from the Sea of Souls. Bound to Ashur-Kai Qezramah.

  tzah’q

  Mutant beastman (Homo sapiens variatus), born of Sortiarius. Strategium overseer aboard the Vengeful Spirit.

  ulrech ansontyn

  Iron Warrior, born of Olympia. Champion of Thagus Daravek.

  ultio, ‘the anamnesis’

  Advanced machine-spirit reigning over the warship Vengeful Spirit, born of Forge Ceres on Sacred Mars.

  valicar hyne

  Black Legion warrior, born of Terra. Master of the Fleet and commander of the warship Thane. Eighth of the Ezekarion.

  vortigern

  Black Legion warrior, born of Caliban. Lord of the Black Lions and commander of the warship With Blade Drawn. Ninth of the Ezekarion.

  zaidu vorolas

  Black Legion warrior, born of Nostramo. Subcommander of the Shrieking Masquerade.

  Terra

  The Gods hate us. I tr
uly believe this.

  They need us. We are their fuel. Our thoughts and deeds are what give them life. They are us, in the most literal sense. Every nightmare, every wound, every death – it all feeds them, it all fuels them, forms them. And no, they are not individual, reasoning entities as a sentient soul could ever comprehend. They are unreasoning forces, emotion and action given etheric shape, burning forever behind the curtain of corporeality.

  But they hate us. I am convinced of it.

  My brothers do not agree with me in this matter. Lheor believed they were mindless and without intent, that they could not hate us because they could not hate, nor love, anything. Ilyaster believes they are generous – even kind – but one must know one’s own desires when dealing with them, and see the strength in even the most cursed gifts that they give. Telemachon sees them as distant, fascinating creatures, preferring his own intimate and secret forms of faith. Sargon believed, with all the fanaticism of any fervent worshipper, that the Gods grant us what we deserve, not what we desire. He used to insist that it is the purpose of our existence to live up to what the Gods wish us to become. That our blood and sweat must ever be spent in reaching the potential that the Pantheon sees within us.

  Even my dear, misguided brother Ahzek believes that they are presences – rational, irrational or otherwise – that can be outfought and out-thought. Ahriman’s belief could charitably be called optimism, or harshly considered to be ignorance. I suspect it is that terrible and compelling blend of both: naïvety.

  But I am convinced that they hate us. They laugh at our dreams. They mock our ambitions. They fight us to enslave us, knowing they need us. They crave champions for their causes, elevating us, offering more – always more – to achieve our goals, only to abandon us and destroy us when we act against their whims. This is more than simple malice. Malice is crude and practically instinctive, a thing even beasts can comprehend. No, this is spite, and spite requires consciousness, emotion, the capacity for ­bitterness and wrath.

  But they reserve their fiercest hatred for Abaddon. Oh, how they despise him. They hunger for him, fighting each other for the honour of attracting his ironclad soul into their clutches. The Pantheon hates him the way parasites or addicts resent that which sustains them. Without Abaddon, they have no hope of victory. If he would only choose one of them, if he would only commit his destiny to one of the Gods, it would bring the Great Game of Chaos to its final moves.

  But then Abaddon would lose. He fights not for the Pantheon, those creatures that hate how they need him, nor does he care about their Great Game. He fights for himself, for his own ambitions, and for the brothers at his side. He fights for the Legions cast aside by the Emperor. He cares about the Imperium we built with our blood, sweat, bolters and blades – and he wants it back. He cares about returning to the godling that gave us life and seeing the Emperor bleed for all His failures. He cares about brotherhood, the unity of the damned, the wrongs that were done to all of us.

  And therein lies the root of the Gods’ spite. They beseech him. They beg him. They betray him in spite and then crawl back in the hope that he will bow to them.

  But the power is ultimately Abaddon’s, and that is what the Gods can never forgive.

  His greatest strength is also his deepest flaw. Because he will not bow to the Pantheon, they will forever betray him and work against his ultimate triumph. It is said that Abaddon’s destiny is an ouroboros, the serpent devouring its own tail, as the Pantheon chases a submission he will never give, and he chases a triumph that may never come.

  And so I tell you this, as true as I have ever been in my entire life: Abaddon’s entire existence is devoted to breaking the cycle. We, his brothers, are his instruments in forcing fate onto a new path.

  And thus, I am here. Captured, if you believe my gaolers, though I came to their door and surrendered my weapons of my own will.

  I am still blind.

  Strange, the things you can become used to. The darkness that stole my sight weaves treacherously around my other senses, tainting them, leaving them unreliable. Even time is a traitor. It no longer plays faithfully through my mind. Eyeless and chained in place, the only way to measure the passing of time is by the beat of my twin hearts. Yet that rhythm becomes deceptive when silence is one’s only companion; minutes can malform into hours, yet hours may pass as wayward moments.

  How long have I been here on Terra? How long have I called this cell home? How long has my only company been the archival servitor that shares this space?

  Why do you not speak, Thoth? Because you will not, or because you cannot? I hear the soft rhythm of your breath, so I know you are not fully automated. Yet your quill scratches on and on, committing these words to parchment. You are mind-reaved to a state of simplicity, perhaps, mono-tasked to avoid the moral threat I represent. Is that it?

  I am wasting my breath with these questions.

  I know what your masters want. They wish for more, always more, more recollections and reflections of an era that was myth to their society thousands of years before any of them were born.

  I am not without pride. I am not immune to the temptation to lie, to reweave past failures and injustices as victories for the sake of my own esteem, to say that the Black Legion’s rise was so inevitable, so born in righteousness, that we ascended with nothing but the acclaim and awe of our brothers and cousins. Yet for all my faults, I am not a petty soul, and there is no gain in spinning lies for Imperial ears.

  This, then, is the truth. The Black Legion’s history is drowned with blood, much of it our own. If it was easy to despise the dying Sons of Horus for their treachery and weakness, it was easier by far to loathe their reincarnation for its strength and defiance. Put simply, we refused to die. And oh, how our brothers and cousins hated us for it. How they tore across the Eye, hunting us for the twin sins of drawing breath and seeking to fight fate.

  Sometimes we fought them. Often, we fled. Those were not days of pride, but nor were they days of outright defeat, for even as we fled from the vengeance and jealousies of our kindred, there were those that sought us out with a mind to fight alongside us.

  Our ranks swelled, timeless night by timeless night. At first almost every recruit was another exile, another wanderer, another disgraced or disgusted soul that came to us in search of a new beginning. Some wished to cleanse themselves of the past and stand beneath a new banner. Some wished to taste once more the purpose of brotherhood after the endless battles within the Eye had broken their old bonds. Some sought to deceive us. They were purged, fed to the creatures that writhed in the dark of the Vengeful Spirit’s deepest decks.

  Soon we recruited not lone warriors or squads, but warbands and warships. Time and again, Abaddon scattered us across the Eye in divided forces, bringing word of his return to his beleaguered Legion, offering amnesty and alliance to any that wished to join with us. Most of our new loyal brethren were the survivors of the shattered Sons of Horus. They came for one reason above all: survival. A dying Legion on the edge of extinction was suddenly presented with three of the most iconic symbols of its former strength. The Legion Wars raged on, yet here was Ezekyle Abaddon, here was Falkus Kibre and here was the Vengeful Spirit. Such an echo of their bright past was surely their greatest chance of survival in a realm that still hungered for their blood.

  Exiles and idealists from every Legion joined us. Vortigern brought his solemn and wayward Lost Lion warband into our ranks. Amurael Enka came next – a brother who has had every chance to betray me across an eternity and yet never once wavered in his loyalty. Then Chariz Terenoch, the Wonderworker, who forged the blade I carried after the destruction of my axe Saern. He was the first of my former brothers among the Thousand Sons to surrender his Rubricae to my mastery.

  Then came Zaidu and his vile cannibals, who inevitably fell into Telemachon’s favour, followed by Delvarus and his brutal Secondborn, once Legion brothers to Lheor and fo
rmerly the guardians of the great warship Conqueror, flagship of the World Eaters.

  None of our foes could overwhelm the Vengeful Spirit head on. Nor was Ezekyle content to exist for survival’s sake and let only stragglers and exiles swear oaths of fealty. He wanted more. He wanted a Legion. Not one of the eighteen Legions of the Great Crusade; his vision was set higher, fou nded in the principles of rebirth. He wanted the first and only Legion of the Long War.

  As tribal conquerors have done since the ages of antiquity, we offered our foes a choice: serve us or be destroyed. Those that chose to swear allegiance to Abaddon were permitted to join our fleet or garrison our strongholds, with some of those humbled warlords even joining Ezekyle’s inner circle. Few chose destruction, though true to our word, we let none survive once they had chosen defiance.

  Through blood and fire we raised ourselves to a place of, if not pride, then at least less dire shame. We commanded a fleet. We were the lords of thousands of warriors, each one sharing our ambitions to be more than we had been. Though we were still hunted by our rivals – and none pursued us more bitterly than the last living Sons of Horus who spat at us for corrupting their legacy – we no longer lived with the blade of extinction against our throats.

  Abaddon’s aggression bordered upon obsession, almost into the realm of madness. He committed us to battle after battle, not only to crush those that offered defiance but also to come to the aid of beleaguered warbands that had sworn oaths of alliance. The Sons of Horus suffered worst of all, still plagued as they were by the shame of their defeat at Terra. Many were the times we tore through the formations of predator fleets hunting Sons of Horus warbands, fighting them back long enough for their prey to either flee or to stand with us against their attackers.

  There was precious little luck to this. Abaddon courted the services and loyalty of sorcerers and seers above almost any other recruits. Ashur-Kai, called for so long the White Seer and now navigator of the Vengeful Spirit, found himself in a position of incomparable value. Nor was he alone – a coven of prophets and oracles formed, and when Abaddon’s seers whispered, he took heed of every word.

  And it worked. Ezekyle Abaddon, who had been First Captain of the XVI Legion and a renowned hero of the Imperium, became a champion to the Sons of Horus. Unprecedented numbers of them abandoned the green ceramite of their old Legion and adopted the colourless distinction of our nameless warband, fighting again beneath his banner. First for survival, and then, as we all believed, for something more.