[Warhammer 40K] - Sons of Dorn Read online

  A WARHAMMER 40,000 NOVEL

  SONS OF DORN

  Imperial Fists

  Chris Roberson

  (An Undead Scan v1.0)

  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 Imperial Guard 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

  In the exercise hall deep in the heart of the Imperial Fist strike cruiser Capulus, Captain Taelos swung his blade through the air in a two-handed grip, eyes closed and thoughts racing. For most of the ship’s day he had been in the hall, going through the various forms and movements set down in Rhetoricus’ catechism of the sword. Ever since he’d been a mere neophyte, to perform the sword-forms had been for Taelos a meditative act, one which in even the most stressful and demanding of circumstances helped him order his thoughts and centre himself, pushing away distractions and focusing on the essential matter at hand.

  It didn’t seem to work for him anymore.

  Long centuries before, Rhetoricus had codified the Rites of Battle by which the Imperial Fists guided their actions. Surpassed in the Chapter’s estimation only by Primarch Rogal Dorn himself, Rhetoricus had near the end of his life distilled all he knew of combat and conquest, of weapons and warriors. In the resulting work, The Book of Five Spheres, Rhetoricus detailed the strengths and limitations of all of the potential weapons in a warrior’s arsenal, but reserved his greatest praise for the sword, which he considered the most perfect close-combat weapon ever devised by the mind of man.

  “The soul of the Imperial Fist can be found in his sword,” Rhetoricus had said. “When the odds are innumerable against you, and there is little hope of victory, still a holy warrior with a sword in his hand can prevail, if his intent is righteous and pure.” Ever since the days of Dorn, it was seldom that a battle-brother of the Imperial Fists ever stepped onto the field of battle without a sword in his fist or at his hip, and it was not unusual to see an Imperial Fist facing the enemy with nothing but his own trusted blade in hand. In the undertaking on Malodrax, which Taelos recalled all too well, Captain Lysander stood against the Iron Warriors with a sword as his only weapon, until he finally reclaimed his master-crafted thunder hammer the Fist of Dorn and was able to scour the servants of Chaos from the planet with hammer and blade.

  Captain Taelos cherished the words of Rhetoricus, finding in them the clarity of thought and purpose that had guided him through campaign after campaign, on countless worlds over the long years. In the forms of the sword laid out in The Book of Five Spheres, Taelos had always found the answer to any question that arose, if he would only first discover the still centre of his being and listen to the lesson which his blade whistling through the air was trying to communicate to him.

  But now, try as he might, all Taelos could hear were his own thoughts racing through his mind. And when he closed his eyes, he couldn’t discover the still centre of his being, but could only see replayed across his mind’s eye the landscape of Nimbosa.

  The memory of his last undertaking still burned in Taelos’ mind. He had been tasked with protecting the Imperial envoy to the tau sept of Tolku, with both envoy and escort given instructions to commence protracted negotiations which would delay the tau from launching their main offensive on the contested world of Nimbosa. The delaying tactic failed, despite the best efforts of Taelos and the envoy, and the full weight of the tau forces led by Commander Brightsword fell on Nimbosa before the Imperium’s forces had arrived. Not a single human colonist survived the assault, down to the youngest child.

  When the Imperial forces arrived, Taelos and the Imperial Fists 2nd Company fought alongside Marshal Helbrecht’s Black Templars in the bloody campaign to retake the world. The Imperial forces strove valiantly, but paid heavily for every victory won. At the Massacre of Koloth Gorge, a number of Imperial Fists and a detachment of Imperial Guardsmen were caught in a narrow gorge by Brightsword, and subjected to a three-hour slaughter in the crossfire. The Guardsmen, and many of the Imperial Fists who fought alongside them, were lost in the action.

  Taelos himself had been badly injured, and another Imperial Fist had been forced to step forwards and take command of the 2nd Company. Had the gene-seed of the Fists not lost the Sus-An Membrane millennia ago, and with it the ability to enter a state of suspended animation, Taelos would have been rendered insensate and unconscious by the severity of his wounds; as it was, he remained fully conscious throughout the aftermath at Koloth Gorge, aware of each and every Guardsman and Astartes who had been lost under his command.

  His injuries had been painful, to be sure. But for the first time since he had been a neophyte, Taelos had been unable to find the healing power of the pain itself. He could not find what the Imperial Fists’ Liturgy of Pain called “the healing, purifying scalpel of the soul”. Taelos knew that pain was the wine of communion with heroes, and yet he could not seem to allow himself to fully embrace it. Like all Imperial Fists, he had been taught as a neophyte that pain was a lesson that the universe teaches us, and yet the only lesson he could glean from his own injuries was that of his own failure. He tried to see his pain as a golden astral fire, the quintessence of a dedicated existence, and yet he found himself looking upon his pain not as “philosophic vitriol”, in the words of the Liturgy, but as punishment.

  Taelos knew that, if any deserved punishment, he did. First he had failed to avert the tau offensive, and as a result he considered the death of the human colonists in their millions as his responsibility, and his alone. But then to have lost so many men and Marines in the attempt to retake Nimbosa was in Taelos’ eyes all but unforgivable.

  It was long months before Taelos fully recovered from his injuries, by which time the Nimbosa campaign was over and the 2nd Company had returned to the Chapter’s fortress-monastery, the massive ship dubbed the Phalanx. Presenting himself to the Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists, Taelos had but one request.

  “A warrior pilgrimage?” Chapter Master Vladimir Pugh had thundered, all those months ago. “Explain yourself, Captain Taelos.”

  “Chapter Master,” Taelos had answered, lowering his gaze in deference, “I can see no other way to atone for the loss of the human colonists of Nimbosa whose lives I failed to protect, and for the loss of our own battle-brothe
rs who fell in the subsequent campaign.”

  Pugh fixed Taelos with a hard stare. It was said amongst the Imperial Fists that their Chapter Master could take the full measure of an Astartes in a glance, and that nothing short of an exhaustive mental probe by a Librarian could uncover anything which had not been revealed by a single appraising look from Pugh. It was this facility, many in the Chapter believed, that made Pugh so adept at selecting the right Fist to promote to any given command, or to which battle-brother to entrust a critical mission.

  Taelos had gone before the Chapter Master in the hope that Pugh’s appraising stare would find him worthy of the boon he requested, and that he would be given leave to pursue his warrior pilgrimage, and so find atonement at last. It was rumoured that Master Pugh had excised his own taste buds, centuries before, in penance over the loss of one hundred and seventy Marines under his command in one terrible action. Taelos hoped that if anyone would understand the need for atonement, it would be the Chapter Master.

  Taelos had hoped in vain.

  “And do you consider your own needs to be of greater importance than those of your Chapter, brother-captain?”

  “No, Chapter Master,” Taelos was quick to answer.

  “Do you consider your own desire for atonement of greater significance than your service to the Emperor, greater even than the well-being and continuation of the Imperial Fists themselves?”

  “No, Chapter Master!”

  Pugh nodded once, slowly. “Good. Then you should be pleased to learn that there is still a service you can provide to Chapter and Emperor. The Imperial Fists’ numbers have been sorely depleted in recent actions, the Nimbosa campaign only one amongst many, and the Chapter is in dire need of reinforcement. We require, in short, aspirants.”

  Taelos knew that it had been some time since a recruiting mission had been dispatched from the Phalanx. Had the Imperial Fists possessed a home world, like some Chapters, they could have culled the likely youth from among the population, a simple matter of expediency. But the Imperial Fists had no home except their fortress-monastery and the ships of their fleet. The Chapter followed the wishes of Primarch Rogal Dorn, who had famously said that he desired “recruits, not vassals”, and who had wanted nothing of the responsibilities that came with having a home world to maintain. Instead, the Imperial Fists recruited from any number of inhabited planetary systems, visiting them in turn every few generations.

  “You are to take command of the 10th Company,” Pugh continued, “and lead a recruitment mission to scour the nearby systems for suitable aspirants. The strike cruiser Capulus has been prepared, and stands ready for your use.”

  Taelos remained silent. The previous captain of the 10th Company had only recently fallen in battle, his loss a significant blow to the Chapter. The posting was a single honour for any Imperial Fist, to be entrusted with the Chapter’s very future.

  But Taelos found it difficult to see the honour, now.

  As captain of the 2nd Company, Taelos had led undertaking after successful undertaking, always bringing greater glory to the Chapter, and to the primarch and Emperor in whose name they fought.

  But that had been before Nimbosa. Now, he was being taken off the front lines, and given command of the 10th Company. Certainly the task of training and educating new Space Marines was a worthy one, but in Taelos’ eyes training Scouts was simply not the same as leading a company of battle-brothers into combat.

  Taelos understood. He would not be allowed to seek atonement and peace on a warrior pilgrimage until his service to the Chapter was done. He could not help but look at his new command as a demotion, however, and the Chapter Master’s indictment of Taelos’ actions on Nimbosa.

  “Is there some problem, brother-captain?” Pugh broke the silence, eyes narrowed.

  “No, Chapter Master,” Taelos said firmly. “Orders received and understood.” Taelos balled his right hand into a fist and crashed his arm against the Imperial aquila emblazoned on his chest plastron, the Chapter’s salute.

  “In the name of Dorn,” Chapter Master Pugh said, returning the salute.

  “And Him on Earth,” Taelos finished, providing the antiphonal response.

  Captain Taelos lowered the point of his blade to the floor of the exercise hall, and slowly opened his eyes. The sword-forms were failing him, again. If it was not memories of Nimbosa that haunted his thoughts, it was the recollection of the aftermath of Nimbosa that occupied his attentions. Neither the focusing agent of pain nor the meditative solace of the sword had proved sufficient to guide him back to the still, silent core of his being.

  “Captain?” came a voice from the doorway.

  Taelos turned to see Veteran-Sergeant Hilts standing in the open door. “Yes, brother-sergeant?”

  “You had wished to inspect the aspirants at their training, sir?” Seeing Taelos nod, Hilts continued, “They’re ready for you now.”

  Taelos returned the blade to the rack, and followed Veteran-Sergeant Hilts out of the exercise hall and down the corridor.

  “This is not your first recruitment mission, brother-sergeant,” Taelos said as they walked along the passageway. “How would you rate our crop of candidates?”

  The veteran-sergeant was thoughtful for a moment before answering. “There are a few among them who may go on to join the brotherhood of Dorn.”

  The captain nodded, considering the response. They were months into the recruitment mission, with more months yet to go before they would finally return to the Phalanx. Once they rendezvoused with the fortress-monastery ship, it was Captain Taelos’ duty to present a cadre of new-minted neophytes to Chapter Master Pugh, ready for the rigours of initiation.

  “Through here, sir,” Veteran-Sergeant Hilts said, and opened a wide doorway on the passageway wall with a touch.

  Captain Taelos stepped through the doorway onto a balcony, and looked down at the youths gathered on the floor below. Aspirants from a dozen different worlds, they were being led by another veteran-sergeant in the first rudimentary exercises of the sword-forms, learning the basics of the Imperial Fists’ art of the blade.

  “Their progress is satisfactory, brother-sergeant,” Taelos said. “You and your fellow Scout sergeants honour your posts.”

  Hilts and the other veteran-sergeants clearly understood the honour that had been bestowed upon them, to help train the next generation of battle-brothers. And the opportunity to lead the 10th Company was that much greater an honour. But while he knew it was his duty to lead the recruitment mission, both to Chapter and to Emperor, Taelos could not help wishing that the mission would soon be at an end, and the Chapter once more at full fighting strength. Then, and only then, might the Chapter Master at last give Taelos leave to depart on his warrior pilgrimage.

  “Thank you, Veteran-Sergeant Hilts,” Taelos said, turning and heading back out into the corridor. “Keep me posted on your ongoing progress.”

  Captain Taelos walked back down the echoing corridor of the strike cruiser, alone with his thoughts. Once he set out on his Pilgrimage, Taelos would spend what remained of his life in hunting down and destroying any and all enemies to the Imperium. He would give all that he was, and all that he would ever be, in cutting a bloody swathe across the heavens in the name of primarch and Emperor, in remembrance of all the battle-brothers of the Imperial Fists Chapter who had fallen on Nimbosa. Alone, armed only with bolter and blade, Taelos would face xenos and traitor, heretic and daemon, until finally the sheer numbers of the enemy overwhelmed him and he fell, never to rise again.

  Perhaps then, when life had fled and his hearts had beat their last, might Taelos finally silence the ghosts that haunted his thoughts.

  PART ONE

  “The soul of the Imperial Fist can be found in his sword.”

  –Rhetoricus, The Book of Five Spheres

  CHAPTER ONE

  From the deck of the caravel anchored off Eokaroe’s western shore, with the red moon of Triandr hanging directly overhead, it seemed as if a baleful red
eye was peering down upon the island, painting the silhouette of its mountains and forested hills in a muted chiaroscuro of crimson and black. On all sides the rest of the fleet rode at anchor, and from the topmast of each the noble ensign of Caritaigne fluttered listlessly in the mild evening breeze.

  Jean-Robur du Queste, standing by the railing at the caravel’s forecastle, dimly recollected from his childhood religious instruction that Triandr’s moon was in Caritaigne traditionally considered in some phases to be the eye of god, and in others was thought to be instead the eye of god’s Dark Twin.

  Never a dutiful student, though, at least in any pursuit but the art of the blade, du Queste could not for his life remember which eye was which. Was god looking down upon the island, and turning his favour towards the fleet of Caritaigne warships anchored off her western shore? Or was this instead an infernal gaze, cast longingly at the souls of Caritaigne’s enemies who would soon be sent into its dark embrace?

  It did not occur to Jean-Robur to imagine, even for the briefest instant, that any signs or portents in the heavens might foretell anything but victory for the forces of Caritaigne. The alternative was simply inconceivable.

  Still, though this would be Jean-Robur’s first battle, he couldn’t help but be somewhat bored with the whole affair. He understood little of the importance of this island of Eokaroe in the ongoing struggle, and cared even less. He was looking forward to testing his blade against the enemy forces, to be sure, but was more interested in the choice of wine at the victory celebrations afterwards than in the combat itself.

  “What troubles you, Mamzel du Queste?” came a mocking voice from behind him. “Afraid?”

  Jean-Robur bristled, and turned to see Benoit Vioget, surrounded by his braying pack of sycophants. A distant cousin of Jean-Robur’s, Benoit was only a handful of years his senior, but had lorded the brief difference in age between them since the expedition had left the shores of Caritaigne, months before.