Fallen Angels ( warhammer: horus heresy ) Read online

  Fallen Angels

  ( Warhammer: Horus Heresy )

  Mike Lee

  The Horus Heresy is the Black Library's premium SF series, telling the story of the civil war that nearly tore the human Imperium apart, ten thousand years ago. This latest title sees triumphant return of the Dark Angels, by Darkblade co-author Mike Lee.

  Mike Lee

  FALLEN ANGELS

  The Horus Heresy

  It is a time of legend.

  Mighty heroes battle for the right to rule the galaxy.

  The vast armies of the Emperor of Earth have conquered the galaxy in a Great Crusade - the myriad alien races have been smashed by the Emperor's elite warriors and wiped from the face of history.

  The dawn of a new age of supremacy for humanity beckons.

  Gleaming citadels of marble and gold celebrate the many victories of the Emperor. Triumphs are raised on a million worlds to record the epic deeds of his most powerful and deadly warriors.

  First and foremost amongst these are the primarchs, superheroic beings who have led the Emperor's armies of Space Marines in victory after victory. They are unstoppable and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperor's genetic experimentation. The Space Marines are the mightiest human warriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of besting a hundred normal men or more in combat.

  Organised into vast armies of tens of thousands called Legions, the Space Marines and their primarch leaders conquer the galaxy in the name of the Emperor.

  Chief amongst the primarchs is Horus, called the Glorious, the Brightest Star, favourite of the Emperor, and like a son unto him. He is the Warmaster, the commander-in-chief of the Emperor's military might, subjugator of a thousand worlds and conqueror of the galaxy. He is a warrior without peer, a diplomat supreme.

  As the flames of war spread through the Imperium, mankind's champions will all be put to the ultimate test.

  ~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~

  With the Emperor's 4th Expeditionary Fleet

  Lion El'Jonson Son of the Emperor, Primarch of the First Legion

  Brother-Redemptor Nemiel Chaplain

  Captain Stenius Master of the battle barge Invincible Reason

  Sergeant Kohl Terran, veteran of many campaigns

  Techmarine Askelon Member of Sergeant Kohl's veteran squad

  Marthes Member of Sergeant Kohl's veteran squad

  Vardus Member of Sergeant Kohl's veteran squad

  Ephrial Member of Sergeant Kohl's veteran squad

  Yung Member of Sergeant Kohl's veteran squad

  Cortus Member of Sergeant Kohl's veteran squad

  Titus Dreadnought

  On Caliban

  Luther Once a great knight; now, in Jonson's absence, Master of Caliban

  Lord Cypher The Keeper of Secrets

  Brother-Librarian israfael Chief Epistolary at Caliban

  Brother-Librarian ZaharielLibrarian in training

  Chapter Master Astellan Terran, one of Luther's training masters

  Master Remiel An elderly and esteemed training master for the Legion

  Brother Attias Veteran of Sarosh and member of the training cadre

  General Morten Terran, Commander of the Calibanite Jaegers

  Magos Administratum Talia Bosk Terran, chief Imperial bureaucrat on Caliban

  Sar Daviel Former knight of the Order

  Lord Thuriel Scion of a once-powerful noble house

  Lady Alera Noble lady and mistress of her house

  Lord Malchial Son of a famous knight, now fallen on hard times

  On Diamat

  Governor Taddeus KulikImperial Governor of Diamat

  Magos Archoi Master of the Forge at Diamat

  PROLOGUE

  Loyalty and Honour

  Caliban

  In the 147th year of the Emperor's Great Crusade

  There were no trumpets to announce their arrival, no cheering crowds to welcome them home. They returned to Caliban in the dead of night, dropping down through the sullen clouds of a late autumn storm.

  One by one the drop ships broke through the heavy overcast, their white undercarriage lights knifing through the gloom as they swept down to the landing field below. For a few moments the black hulls of the Stormbirds were highlighted by the harsh yellow glow of the space port lights, picking out the winged sword insignia of the Emperor's First Legion on the transports' broad wings.

  The assault ships flared their thrusters and settled onto the landing pad amid billowing clouds of hissing steam. Moments later came the iron clang of assault ramps striking permacrete, followed by the heavy tread of armoured feet; huge, broad-shouldered giants emerged from the roiling mists. Rain lashed at the curved plates of the Dark Angels' black power armour and soaked the white surplices of the warrior-initiates. Here and there, orbs of blurry crimson light leaked from the oculars of battle helms, but for the most part the Astartes had bared their faces to the storm. Water beaded on heavy brows and blunt cheekbones, on gleaming data plugs and shaven pates. To a man, their expressions were as stern and impassive as stone.

  The Astartes marched to the far end of the permacrete and formed into silent ranks facing the Stormbirds, their boltguns held at port arms. There were no proud banners to raise above the serried lines, nor bold champions to anchor the files with their ceremonial harness and master-crafted blades. All those honours had been left behind with their parent chapters, still fighting with the primarch and the Fourth Expeditionary Fleet at Sarosh. Their armour was polished and unadorned; only a few bore the traces of battle scars mended during the long journey. Since leaving Caliban to join the Emperor's Crusade they had participated in just a single campaign; few of them had seen any combat at all before receiving the order to return home.

  Thrusters roared as empty Stormbirds lifted ponderously into the air, making room for still more drop ships descending through the iron-grey cloud cover. The ranks of the returning warriors swelled, rapidly filling the northern edge of the landing field. It took more than four hours to transport the entire contingent to the planet's surface, with the assault ships working in steady rotation; the assembled warriors waited and watched in complete silence, stolid and immovable as statues while the wind howled and the storm raged about them.

  Two hours before dawn, the last of the transport flights touched down. The ranks of Astartes stirred slightly as warriors roused themselves from meditative rotes and came to full attention as the last four Stormbirds lowered their ramps and their passengers disembarked.

  First came the wounded; Astartes who had suffered grievous injuries during the combat landings at Sarosh, their comatose forms borne on grav-sleds and watched over by attentive Legion Apothecaries. Next was the guard of honour, comprised of the most senior warrior-initiates in the cadre. In the lead marched Brother-Librarian Israfael, his dour face hidden within the depths of a wide samite hood. Each of the Astartes in the guard of honour wore surplices hemmed with ruby, sapphire, emerald, adamantine or gold, signifying their devotion to one of the Higher Mysteries. All, that is, except one.

  Zahariel marched ten steps behind Brother Israfael, his head hooded like that of his mentor and his armoured hands tucked into the broad sleeves of his plain surplice. He felt self-conscious and out of place among the champions and senior initiates, but Israfael had been adamant.

  'You saved everyone on Sarosh,' the Librarian had declared, back aboard the Wrath of Caliban, 'including the primarch himself. And you spend more time at Luther's side these days than all the rest of us combined. If you don't deserve to stand in the honour guard, none of us do.'

  The guard of honour followed at a measured pace behind their wounded brothers, who passed slowly by the wa
iting ranks of Dark Angels and then took their leave, headed for Aldurukh's extensive medicae wards. Israfael halted the guard of honour before the assembled Astartes and with a murmured command ordered a sharp about-face. Twelve boots crashed down in unison on the rain-slick permacrete and every warrior stiffened to attention. Rain drummed against Zahariel's hood, plastering it slowly to the top of his shaved head.

  Across the landing field the assault ramp on the Stormbird lowered with a faint hiss of hydraulics. Ruddy light spilled down the ramp, casting a long, martial shadow onto the scorched pavement as a single, armoured figure emerged into the stormy night.

  At just that moment, the driving rain slackened and the howling wind receded like an indrawn breath as Luther set foot on Caliban once more. The former knight was clad in gleaming armour of black and gold, forged in the close-fitting Calibanite fashion rather than the larger, bulkier Crusader-pattern suits favoured by the Astartes. A curved adamantine combat shield bearing the insignia of a Calibanite wyrm was strapped to the knight's upper left arm, while his right pauldron bore the winged sword insignia of the Emperor's First Legion on a dark green field. On Luther's left hip rode Nightfall, the fearsome hand-and-a-half power sword gifted to him in happier days by Lion El'Jonson himself; in a holster on his right sat an old and well-worn pistol that had seen much use in the monster-haunted forests of Caliban. A winged great helm concealed the knight's features and a heavy black cloak swirled about his feet as he strode swiftly to the assembled warriors.

  Every eye was upon Luther as he came to a halt precisely twenty paces from the Astartes and surveyed their ranks with glowing, implacable eyes. Though he had been given many of the same physical augmentations as Zahariel and the rest, Luther had been too old to receive the gene-seed as they had. They towered head and shoulders over him, and yet his sheer physical presence seemed to fill the space around him, making him seem far larger than he actually was. Even Israfael, a Terran by birth, seemed slightly awed by Jonson's second-in-command. He was the sort of man that came along once in a thousand years, a man who might have united all of Caliban but for the appearance of another, even greater figure: Lion El'Jonson himself.

  Luther surveyed the Astartes for a moment longer, then reached up and drew off his helm. He had a handsome, square-jawed face, with strong cheekbones and an aquiline nose. His eyes were dark and piercing, like chips of polished obsidian. His hair was black as jet and cropped close to his skull.

  Thunder rumbled off to the south and the wind began to pick up again, blowing a curtain of cold rain across the landing field. Luther turned his face to the heavens and closed his eyes, and Zahariel thought he saw the ghost of a smile play across his face as the drops struck his cheeks. The precipitation grew into a steady, pelting shower once more.

  Zahariel watched as Luther took a deep breath and glanced back at the assembled troops. This time his grin was broad and comradely, but Zahariel saw that the smile didn't reach all the way to Luther's eyes.

  'Welcome home, brothers,' Luther said, his powerful speaking voice carrying easily over the rain and the wind, and eliciting rueful chuckles from the Astartes in the front ranks. 'I regret that I can't promise you a grand feast, such as welcomed the questing knights of old. If we're lucky and we're bold, perhaps we can stage a quick raid on Master Luwin's kitchen and make off with some fresh victuals before the day's work begins.'

  Many of the Dark Angels laughed at the thought, remembering Luwin, the roaring tyrant of the kitchens at old Aldurukh. Zahariel chuckled in spite of himself, thinking back to his days as an aspirant and remembering fondly the halls and courtyards of the fortress. For the first time since leaving Sarosh, he found himself looking forward to seeing Aldurukh again.

  Before the laughter could entirely subside, Luther tucked his helmet under his right arm and nodded to his honour guard. 'All right,' he said. 'Let's go see how much the old rock has changed in our absence.'

  Without another word, Luther turned on his heel and set off for the landing field's access road, his shoulders straight and his head held high. Immediately his honour guard fell into step behind him, and then moments later the pavement resounded with the thunder of hundreds of armoured feet as the rest of the cadre began the march to the distant fortress.

  Luther marched at the head of the column like a conquering hero, returning to Caliban in glory rather than exile. It was an impressive performance, Zahariel thought, but he wondered if any of his brothers were fooled by it.

  Officially, they had been ordered back to Caliban because the Great Crusade was about to enter a new operational phase, and the First Legion was in dire need of new recruits to meet the tasks the Emperor had planned for them. The Lion declared that experienced warriors were needed at home to speed up the training process, and a list of names was drawn up and circulated throughout the fleet. Little more than a week after being deployed on their first campaign, Zahariel and more than five hundred of his brothers - over half a chapter - discovered they had been dismissed.

  The news had stunned them all. Zahariel had seen it in the eyes of his battle brothers as they'd mustered on the embarkation deck to begin the long trip back to Caliban. If the Legion needed warriors so badly, why were they being pulled from the front lines? Training recruits was a job for elders, men who were full of wisdom but past their physical prime. That was the way it had been on their homeworld for generations - and it had escaped no one that virtually all of the Astartes being sent home were from Caliban rather than Terra.

  Ironically, it was the announcement that Luther himself would take charge of the recruitment effort that convinced them something was wrong. Luther, the man who had been Jonson's right hand for decades, and who had risen to become the Legion's second-in-command despite not being an Astartes himself, had no business leaving the Crusade to train young recruits at Aldurukh. He was being sent as far from the Lion as possible, and the rest of the cadre were being exiled along with him.

  They followed their orders to the letter, without question or hesitation, as they had been trained to do. But Zahariel could see the doubts that had taken root inside each of his battle brothers. What did we do? How have we failed him? But Luther gave the Astartes little opportunity to speculate; once the Wrath of Caliban entered the warp he established a rigorous regimen of equipment maintenance, combat training and readiness drills that kept spare time to an absolute minimum. To all intents and purposes, it appeared that the Legion's second-in-command took the primarch at his word and intended to fulfil his assigned task to the best of his ability. When he wasn't taking an active role inspecting wargear or supervising combat exercises, Luther spent the rest of his time secluded in his quarters, drafting plans for overhauling the training practices at Aldurukh.

  Zahariel was kept as busy as the rest, although he quickly found himself exempted from the more mundane aspects of the shipboard inspections and readiness drills in favour of training his psychic powers under the tutelage of Brother-Librarian Israfael and acting as Luther's unofficial aide-decamp.

  The order had come down shortly after the voyage began. Luther required an assistant to help draft the orders for the new training scheme and organise the ongoing activities aboard ship. He had chosen Zahariel personally for the job. Most assumed that he'd chosen the young Astartes because of their shared exploits during the Saroshi assassination attempt aboard the primarch's flagship, the Invincible Reason. They were correct in their assumption, but not for the reasons they imagined.

  The Saroshi had been a highly cultured people who hid a terrible canker at the heart of their civilization. Sometime during the nightmare known as the Age of Strife they had sealed a pact with a horrific entity in exchange for their survival. When the Dark Angels had assumed the task of formalising Saroshi compliance, the Saroshi leaders had attempted to assassinate their primarch by smuggling an atomic warhead onto the flagship. Had the bomb not been discovered and dealt with by Luther and Zahariel, the Legion would have been dealt a catastrophic blow or so the sto
ry went.

  Luther never brought up the incident during the length of the voyage back to Caliban, but the question hung in the air between them. Had Jonson suspected the truth? Was that why Luther had been sent away, and was Zahariel being punished by virtue of his association to the event?

  There was no way to know.

  The space port was one of five within a two-hundred-square-kilometre perimeter around the Legion fortress of Aldurukh. Zahariel could remember a time when the land had been covered in dense forest that teemed with deadly plant and animal life. Caliban was considered by Imperial planetologists to be a ''death world'' - a planet that wasn't merely dangerous but actively inimical to human life. Every day had been a struggle for survival, and life was both brutal and often very short. It was only through the courage and sacrifice of the planet's knightly orders that humanity survived at all.

  Lion El'Jonson had united all the knightly orders under his leadership and had led a successful campaign to eradicate the deadliest of Caliban's monsters, but the final blow had come in the form of the Imperium. The Emperor's servants had descended on the planet with enormous machines that cleared dozens of kilometres of forest a day and left flat, lifeless earth in their wake. Mines, refineries and manufactorums had followed, ready to transform the planet's abundant resources into vital war materiel for the Emperor's Crusade. Cities were built to supply the sprawling industrial sites, growing upwards and outwards with each passing year as villages and towns were emptied and their citizens relocated to better serve the Imperium.

  In the past, more than two dozen villages and settlements had supported the fortress of Aldurukh, providing everything from food to clothing, metal ore and medicines so that the knights were free to hone their skills and defend the land from the beasts. All of them were gone now; the land surrounding the fortress had been levelled and transformed into a vast military and logistical complex. Zahariel would have been hard-put to recall where any of the villages had once stood. Now, in addition to the space ports, there were training centres, barracks, arsenals, storehouses and maintenance yards stretching as far as the eye could see, all dedicated to supplying the Legion with the men and equipment it needed to fulfil its role in the Great Crusade.