The Talon of Horus Read online

  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.

  For my brother Rob, who knows everything worth knowing. With a special thanks for that month we (read: he) spent constructing the most sacred of gaming rooms: The Aaronorium.

  And as always, for my son Alexander, whose first birthday was a few weeks before I started writing this brain-eating daemon of a novel, and whose second was a few weeks before I finished it. My heart beats for you, Shakes.

  ‘//’’#

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  In alphabetical order

  the anamnesis

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

  ashur-kai qezremah, ‘the white seer’

  XV Legion warrior, born of Terra. Sorcerer of the Kha’Sherhan warband and voidseer of the warship Tlaloc.

  ceraxia

  Mechanicum Adept, born of Sacred Mars. Governess of the foundry world Gallium, and Lady of Niobia Halo.

  djedhor

  XV Legion warrior, born of Terra. Lost to the Rubric of Ahriman.

  ezekyle abaddon

  XVI Legion warrior, born of Cthonia. Former First Captain of the Sons of Horus, former High Chieftain of the Justaerin. Commander of the warship Vengeful Spirit.

  fabius, ‘the primogenitor’

  III Legion warrior, born of Chemos. Former Chief Apothecary of the Emperor’s Children, and commander of the warship Pulchritudinous.

  falkus kibre, ‘widowmaker’

  XVI Legion warrior, born of Cthonia. Chieftain of the Duraga kal Esmejhak warband, and commander of the warship Baleful Eye. Former commander of the Justaerin.

  gyre

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

  imperious

  The Solar Priest; Avatar of the Astronomican, born of the God-Emperor’s will.

  iskandar khayon

  XV Legion warrior, born of Prospero. Sorcerer of the Kha’Sherhan warband and commander of the warship Tlaloc.

  kadalus orlantir

  III Legion warrior, born of Chemos. Sardar of the Emperor’s Children 16th, 40th and 51st Companies warband, and commander of the warship Perfection’s Lament.

  kureval shairak

  XVI Legion warrior, born of Terra. Warrior of the Duraga kal Esmejhak warband and member of the Justaerin.

  lheorvine ukris, ‘firefist’

  XII Legion warrior, born of Nuvir’s Landing. Leader of the Fifteen Fangs warband, and commander of the warship Jaws of the White Hound.

  mekhari

  XV Legion warrior, born of Prospero. Lost to the Rubric of Ahriman.

  nefertari

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

  the ragged knight

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

  sargon eregesh

  XVII Legion warrior-priest, born of Colchis. Chaplain of the Brazenhead Chapter.

  telemachon lyras

  III Legion warrior, born of Terra. Subcommander of the Emperor’s Children 16th, 40th and 51st Companies warband, and captain of the warship Threat of Rapture.

  tokugra

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

  tzah’q

  Mutant (Homo sapiens variatus), born of Sortiarius. Strategium overseer aboard the Tlaloc.

  ugrivian calaste

  XII Legion warrior, born of Nuvir’s Landing. Soldier of the Fifteen Fangs warband.

  valicar, ‘the graven’

  IV Legion warrior, born of Terra. Guardian of the foundry world Gallium, and commander of the warship Thane.

  TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

  999.M41

  Before the beginning, there was an end.

  As I speak these words, a quill scratches quietly on parchment, faithfully recording everything I say. The soft sounds of writing are almost companionable. How quaint, that my scribe uses ink, pen and parchment.

  I do not know his true name, or if he even possesses one any more. I have asked several times but the scratching quill is my only reply. Perhaps he has nothing more than a serial code. That would not be uncommon.

  ‘I will call you Thoth,’ I tell him. He offers no response to this courtesy. I inform him it was the name of an ancient and renowned Prosperine scribe. He doesn’t reply. Imagine my disappointment.

  I do not know what he looks like. My hosts, caring and gracious souls that they are, have blinded me, shackled me to a stone wall, and invited me to confess my sins. I am reluctant to call them my ‘captors’, when I walked unarmed into their midst and surrendered without violence. ‘Hosts’ seems a fairer term.

  On the first night, my hosts took my first and sixth senses, leaving me sightless and powerless in the dark.

  So I do not know what my scribe looks like, but I can guess. He is a servitor, doubtless like millions of others. I hear his heart, as passionless as the stately ticking of a musician’s metrogauge. His cyborged joints whirr and click as he moves, and his breathing is a verse of measured sighs through a slack mouth. I never hear him blink. Most likely his eyes have been replaced by augmetics.

  Commencing a chronicle like this requires honesty, and these are the only words that feel true. Before the beginning, there was an end. This is how the Sons of Horus died. This is how the Black Legion rose.

  The Black Legion’s story begins with the assault on Canticle City. That was where everything changed, where the sons of several Legions went to battle together against a blasphemy we could not allow to stand. It was the last time we went to war in the colours of our old Legions.

  But such a tale requires context.

  There is an era recorded in the annals of Imperial history that has suffered as all recollections must suffer in time, with its details twisted into a mockery of remembrance. This was an age of relative peace and prosperity, when the fires of the Horus Heresy had settled down to ash, and mankind’s empire ruled over the galaxy with an unchallenged grip.

  What few archives survive to record this ‘golden age’ in an
y detail now hearken back to it in reverent whispers as the chronometers tick closer to midnight in this last, dark millennium.

  Picture that domain, if you can. An empire across the stars, united and invincible – its foes destroyed, its traitors scoured. Any soul crying out against the worship of the ‘divine’ Emperor suffers the ultimate punishment, forfeiting life for the sin of speaking blasphemy. Any xenos-breed within Imperial space is hunted down and slaughtered with merciless impunity. Mankind had a strength then that it lacks now. The true decline of the Emperor’s interstellar domain hadn’t yet begun.

  Still, a tumour lingered. The Imperium hadn’t destroyed its foes. Not completely. It had merely forgotten them. Forgotten us.

  Peace, for the first time in humanity’s long history, had been built upon the proud ignorance that follows the bitterest victory. Already, mere generations after the galaxy burned, the Heresy and the Scouring that followed were falling into legend.

  The High Lords of Terra – those worthies who ruled in their ‘ascended’ Emperor’s name – believed us gone. Believed us ruined or slain, in our shameful exile. Amongst themselves, they sowed stories of our banishment to an underworld, dwelling in eternal torment inside the Great Eye. After all, what mortal could survive within the greatest warp storm ever unleashed across reality? A vortex of annihilation in the galaxy’s heart made for a convenient method of execution: a pit into which this new empire could cast its traitors.

  In those earliest days, the fortress that would become the war-world of Cadia was a neglected outpost of cold rock and complacence. It needed no vast battlefleet to patrol its domain in the void, and its population was spared the fate it suffers now, as its governor-militants feed the population into the flesh-grinders of the Imperial Guard, swallowing children and spitting out soldiers destined to die.

  The Cadia of that lost age needed nothing at all, for it was scarcely threatened. The Imperium was strong because its foes no longer raised blades to bring down its False Emperor.

  We had other wars to wage. We were fighting each other. These were the Legion Wars. They raged across the Eye with a fury that made a mockery of the Horus Heresy.

  We were forgetting the Imperium as much as the Imperium was forgetting us, though over time our battles began to spill into real space. Hell itself couldn’t contain the grudges we bore each other.

  I have promised to reveal everything, and I am a man of my word, no matter the sins that my jailors believe stain my soul. In return, they have promised me all the ink and parchment necessary to document my words. They have crucified me, knowing it will not kill me. They have stolen the sorcery from my blood, and they have torn my eyes from their sockets. But I do not need eyes to dictate this chronicle. All I need is patience and a little slack on my chains.

  The Black Legion’s tale is the story of the lost souls who came together in Abaddon’s name, forming new bonds of brotherhood. And the Black Legion’s rise from the ashes is, first of all, the story of the search for the one we would call Warmaster.

  Here I commit to parchment the first chapter of a tale that lasts ten thousand years, with moments of loss, triumph, ruination and vindication. The rolls of the dead list the names of some of my closest brothers and sisters, their lives sacrificed in this sacred war. I dream of them now, when once I dreamed of wolves.

  It falls to me to tell this tale. So be it.

  I am Iskandar Khayon, born of Prospero. In the Low Gothic of the Terran Urals region, you would speak Iskandar as Sekhandur, and Khayon as Caine.

  The Thousand Sons know me as Khayon the Black, for my sins against our bloodline. My Warmaster’s forces name me Kingbreaker – the mage who brought Magnus the Red to his knees.

  I am the Warleader of the Kha’Sherhan, a Lord of the Ezekarion, and a brother to Ezekyle Abaddon. I shed blood with him at the dawn of the Long War, when the first of us stood armoured in black beneath the rising red sun.

  Every word on these pages is true.

  From shame and shadow recast.

  In black and gold reborn.

  THE SORCERER AND THE MACHINE

  In the long years before the Battle of Canticle City, I knew no fear because I had nothing to lose. Everything I’d treasured was dust at the mercy of history’s winds. Every truth I’d fought for was now nothing more than idle philosophy – spoken by exiles, whispered to ghosts.

  None of this angered me, nor was I victim to any special melancholy. I’d learned over the centuries that only a fool tried to fight fate.

  All that remained were the nightmares. My somnolent mind took a dark joy in casting back to Judgement Day, when wolves howled and ran through the burning city streets. I dreamed the same dream each time I allowed myself to sleep. Wolves, always the wolves.

  Adrenaline pulled me from slumber on a lactic leash, leaving my hands trembling and my skin dusted in cold crystals of sweat. Dream-howls followed me back to the waking world, fading into the metal walls of my meditation cell. Some nights, I felt those howls in my blood, riding through my veins, imprinted in my genetic coding. The wolves, even though they were nothing more than memory, hunted with an eagerness fiercer than fury.

  I waited for them to melt away into the thrumming sounds of the ship all around. Only then did I rise. The chronometer cited that I’d slept for almost three hours. After remaining awake for thirteen days, even a clutch of stolen hours’ rest was a welcome respite.

  On the deck floor of my modest bedchamber, a wolf that wasn’t a wolf lay in watchful repose. Her white eyes, as featureless as perfect pearls, tracked me as I stood. When the beast rose a moment later, her movements were unnaturally fluid, not bound to the motions of natural muscle. She didn’t move the way real wolves moved, nor even as the wolves that haunted my dreams. She moved like a ghost wearing a wolf’s skin.

  The nearer one came to the creature, the less she resembled a natural beast at all. Her claws and teeth were glassy and black. Her mouth was dry of any saliva, and she never blinked. She smelt not of flesh and fur but of the smoke that follows fire – the undeniable scent of a murdered home world.

  Master, came the wolf’s thought. It wasn’t really a word; it was a concept, an acknowledgement of submission and affection. However, a human – and post-human – mind instinctively processes such things as language.

  Gyre, I sent back in telepathic greeting.

  You dream too loud, she told me. I fed well that day. The last breaths of the Fenris-born. The crack of white bones for the tangy marrow within. The salty tongue-sting of the proudest blood.

  Her amusement inspired my own. Her confidence was always infectious.

  ‘Khayon,’ came a dull, inhuman voice from all around the chamber. A voice wholly starved of both emotion and gender. ‘We know you are awake.’

  ‘I am,’ I assured the empty air. Gyre’s dark fur was soft beneath my fingertips. It felt almost real. The beast paid no heed as I scratched behind its ears, showing neither pleasure nor irritation.

  ‘Come to us, Khayon.’

  I wasn’t sure I could deal with such a meeting, just then.

  ‘I cannot. Ashur-Kai needs me.’

  ‘We are recording tonal signifiers suggesting deception in your reply, Khayon.’

  ‘That is because I am lying to you.’

  No reply. I took that as a good thing. ‘Has there been any word regarding power through the antechambers connected to the spinal thoroughfares?’

  ‘No recorded changes,’ the voice assured me.

  A shame, but not a surprise, given the ship’s power conservation. I rose from the slab that served as my pallet, thumbing my sore eyes in the wake of unsatisfying slumber. The chamber’s illumination was dull with the Tlaloc’s depleted power, mirroring the years I’d spent as a Tizcan child reading parchments by hand-held illume-globe.

  Tizca, once called the City of Light. The last time I had seen the city of my b
irth was when I’d fled from it, watching Prospero burn as the planet receded on the occulus viewscreen.

  Tizca still lived after a fashion, on the Legion’s new home world of Sortiarius. I had visited it a handful of times, deep in the Eye, yet never felt any compunction to remain there. Many of my brothers felt the same – at least, those few with their minds still intact. In those inglorious days, the Thousand Sons were a divided brotherhood at best. At worst, they’d forgotten what it meant to be brothers at all.

  As for Magnus, the Crimson King who once held court above his sons? Our father was lost in the ebb and flow of the Great Game, fighting the War of the Four Gods. His concerns were etheric and ethereal, while his sons’ ambitions were still mortal and mundane. All we wanted to do was survive. Many of my brothers sold their lore and war-sorcery to the highest bidders amongst the warring Legions. Our talents were always in demand.

  Sortiarius was a hostile home, even among the myriad worlds bathed in the energies of the Eye. All who dwelled there lived beneath a burning sky that stole all notion of night and day, with the heavens drowned in a swirling, tormented chorus of the restless dead. I had seen Saturn, in the same planetary system as Terra; and the planet Kelmasr, orbiting the white sun Clovo. Both planets are haloed with rings of rock and ice, marking them out from their celestial brethren. Sortiarius had a similar ring, spectrally white against the tumultuous violet of Eyespace. It was formed not from ice or rock, but from shrieking souls. The Thousand Sons’ exile-world was quite literally crowned by the howling spirits of those who had died by deceit.

  It was beautiful, in its own way.

  ‘Come to us,’ said the mechanical voice from the wall-mounted vox-speakers.

  Was I imagining the faint edge of a plea in the dead tone? It unnerved me, though I couldn’t say why.

  ‘I would rather not.’

  I moved to the door, and didn’t need to tell Gyre to follow. The black wolf padded after me, white eyes watching, obsidian claws clicking and scratching along the deck. Sometimes – if you glanced at the right moment – Gyre’s shadow against the wall was something tall and horned and winged. Other times, my she-wolf cast no shadow at all.