Sons of the Selenar
Book 1 – THE SOLAR WAR
Book 2 – THE LOST AND THE DAMNED
Book 1 – HORUS RISING
Book 2 – FALSE GODS
Book 3 – GALAXY IN FLAMES
Book 4 – THE FLIGHT OF THE EISENSTEIN
Book 5 – FULGRIM
Book 6 – DESCENT OF ANGELS
Book 7 – LEGION
Book 8 – BATTLE FOR THE ABYSS
Book 9 – MECHANICUM
Book 10 – TALES OF HERESY
Book 11 – FALLEN ANGELS
Book 12 – A THOUSAND SONS
Book 13 – NEMESIS
Book 14 – THE FIRST HERETIC
Book 15 – PROSPERO BURNS
Book 16 – AGE OF DARKNESS
Book 17 – THE OUTCAST DEAD
Book 18 – DELIVERANCE LOST
Book 19 – KNOW NO FEAR
Book 20 – THE PRIMARCHS
Book 21 – FEAR TO TREAD
Book 22 – SHADOWS OF TREACHERY
Book 23 – ANGEL EXTERMINATUS
Book 24 – BETRAYER
Book 25 – MARK OF CALTH
Book 26 – VULKAN LIVES
Book 27 – THE UNREMEMBERED EMPIRE
Book 28 – SCARS
Book 29 – VENGEFUL SPIRIT
Book 30 – THE DAMNATION OF PYTHOS
Book 31 – LEGACIES OF BETRAYAL
Book 32 – DEATHFIRE
Book 33 – WAR WITHOUT END
Book 34 – PHAROS
Book 35 – EYE OF TERRA
Book 36 – THE PATH OF HEAVEN
Book 37 – THE SILENT WAR
Book 38 – ANGELS OF CALIBAN
Book 39 – PRAETORIAN OF DORN
Book 40 – CORAX
Book 41 – THE MASTER OF MANKIND
Book 42 – GARRO
Book 43 – SHATTERED LEGIONS
Book 44 – THE CRIMSON KING
Book 45 – TALLARN
Book 46 – RUINSTORM
Book 47 – OLD EARTH
Book 48 – THE BURDEN OF LOYALTY
Book 49 – WOLFSBANE
Book 50 – BORN OF FLAME
Book 51 – SLAVES TO DARKNESS
Book 52 – HERALDS OF THE SIEGE
Book 53 – TITANDEATH
Book 54 – THE BURIED DAGGER
More tales from the Horus Heresy...
PROMETHEAN SUN
AURELIAN
BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM
THE CRIMSON FIST
CORAX: SOULFORGE
PRINCE OF CROWS
DEATH AND DEFIANCE
TALLARN: EXECUTIONER
SCORCHED EARTH
THE PURGE
THE HONOURED
THE UNBURDENED
BLADES OF THE TRAITOR
TALLARN: IRONCLAD
RAVENLORD
THE SEVENTH SERPENT
WOLF KING
CYBERNETICA
SONS OF THE FORGE
Many of these titles are also available as abridged and unabridged audiobooks. Order the full range of Horus Heresy novels and audiobooks from blacklibrary.com
Also available
MACRAGGE’S HONOUR
Dan Abnett and Neil Roberts
Audio Dramas
THE DARK KING & THE LIGHTNING TOWER
RAVEN’S FLIGHT
GARRO: OATH OF MOMENT
GARRO: LEGION OF ONE
BUTCHER’S NAILS
GREY ANGEL
GARRO: BURDEN OF DUTY
GARRO: SWORD OF TRUTH
THE SIGILLITE
HONOUR TO THE DEAD
CENSURE
WOLF HUNT
HUNTER’S MOON
THIEF OF REVELATIONS
TEMPLAR
ECHOES OF RUIN
MASTER OF THE FIRST
THE LONG NIGHT
THE EAGLE’S TALON
IRON CORPSES
RAPTOR
GREY TALON
THE EITHER
THE HEART OF THE PHAROS / CHILDREN OF SICARUS
RED-MARKED
ECHOES OF IMPERIUM
ECHOES OF REVELATION
THE THIRTEENTH WOLF
VIRTUES OF THE SONS/SINS OF THE FATHER
THE BINARY SUCCESSION
DARK COMPLIANCE
BLACKSHIELDS: THE FALSE WAR
BLACKSHIELDS: THE RED FIEF
HUBRIS OF MONARCHIA
NIGHTFANE
Download the full range of Horus Heresy audio dramas from blacklibrary.com
Contents
Cover
Title Page
The Siege of Terra
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
Book 1
1
2
3
Book 2
4
5
6
7
Book 3
8
9
10
11
Afterword
About the Author
eBook license
It is a time of legend.
The galaxy is in flames. The Emperor’s glorious vision for humanity is in ruins. His favoured son, Horus, has turned from his father’s light and embraced Chaos.
His armies, the mighty and redoubtable Space Marines, are locked in a brutal civil war. Once, these ultimate warriors fought side by side as brothers, protecting the galaxy and bringing mankind back into the Emperor’s light. Now they are divided.
Some remain loyal to the Emperor, whilst others have sided with the Warmaster. Pre-eminent amongst them, the leaders of their thousands-strong Legions, are the primarchs. Magnificent, superhuman beings, they are the crowning achievement of the Emperor’s genetic science. Thrust into battle against one another, victory is uncertain for either side.
Worlds are burning. At Isstvan V, Horus dealt a vicious blow and three loyal Legions were all but destroyed. War was begun, a conflict that will engulf all mankind in fire. Treachery and betrayal have usurped honour and nobility. Assassins lurk in every shadow.
Armies are gathering. All must choose a side or die.
Horus musters his armada, Terra itself the object of his wrath. Seated upon the Golden Throne, the Emperor waits for his wayward son to return. But his true enemy is Chaos, a primordial force that seeks to enslave mankind to its capricious whims.
The screams of the innocent, the pleas of the righteous resound to the cruel laughter of Dark Gods. Suffering and damnation await all should the Emperor fail and the war be lost.
The end is here. The skies darken, colossal armies gather. For the fate of the Throneworld, for the fate of mankind itself...
The Siege of Terra has begun.
~ Dramatis Personae ~
The Sisypheum
Ulrach Branthan, Captain, Iron Hands 65th Clan-Company
Cadmus Tyro, Acting captain of the Sisypheum
Frater Thamatica, Ironwrought, Avernii veteran
Ignatius Numen, Battle-brother
Sabik Wayland, Iron Father
Garuda, Eagle construct of Ulrach Branthan
Nykona Sharrowkyn, Raven Guard 66th Company
Atesh Tarsa, Apothecary, Salamanders 24th Company
The Selenar
Heliosa-54, High Matriarch of Luna's Selenar cults
Ta'lab Vita-37, Gene-witch of the Selenar
The Sons of Horus
&n
bsp; Trastevere, Justaerin, captain of the Eye's Watch
Vornak, Justaerin Terminator
Urgave, Justaerin Terminator
'I, for one, know of no sweeter sight for a man's eyes than his own country...'
- Omerus, the Blind Bard of Ionia
'A leader is ultimately responsible for everything.'
- The Primarch Guilliman
'Loyalist, traitor...? The distinction is irrelevant. They are all sons of the Selenar.'
- Ta'lab Vita-37
PROLOGUE
Do not swear by the moon,
for she changes constantly.
The surface of Terra was burning.
Its atmosphere glowed with the fires of Unity.
Storms of global war raged beneath toxic skies, like the banked embers of a hearth.
They bathed the Lunar surface in red.
Warfare had riven humanity's birthrock for as long as the Selenar could remember, the conflicts growing in scale with every passing epoch and each unchecked evolution of technology.
'War has recast the world in its image,' said Heliosa-54, the ruddy light of Terra's unification reflecting from the moulded surfaces of her chromium mask.
'It has always been thus, revered matriarch,' spat Ta'lab Vita-37, her multi-armed form hunched over the data-light of the command console. 'It is mankind's nature to destroy.'
The matriarch of the Selenar turned to her most trusted gene maiden, hearing the stress placed on the man of mankind.
'That is likely true,' agreed Heliosa-54, 'but we too are a branch of that shared root. Yes, we distil the essences of singular genetic paths in search of the perfect aspects of our species, but follow the strands of history far enough back, and we are not so different.'
She felt Ta'lab Vita-37's urge to challenge that assertion, her consciously evolved nature as a contrarian and questioner warring with her respect for Heliosa-54's vaunted archetype.
'You disagree?'
'I would not presume to, revered matriarch. Not now.'
'Of course you would, it is the archetype you iterate upon with every evolution. Speak freely.'
'Very well, revered matriarch,' said Ta'lab Vita-37, pausing to gesture towards the grim situation unfolding in front of them. 'The Emperor's transhuman warriors are bred to wreak bloody ruin and nothing else. They are capable of nothing else. But we of the Selenar cults, by iterating upon the twin mysteries of the helix, perform acts of delation and creation. The gene-wrights of the Emperor pursue only the science of death, and it is too late for them to change their course.'
'And our sciences? Do we not also craft killing engines of steel and flesh?'
'For the defence of our fiefdoms, yes,' Ta'lab Vita-37 conceded. 'But the Dianic rites bring us closer to the true potential of humanity. Ultimately they will move us further from the urge to destroy.
'I hope that will one day prove to be the case,' said Heliosa-54. 'But do not be so quick to condemn our Terran brothers. In times past, there were moments when the better angels of human nature sought to turn our species from the bloody altars of war. To embrace Peace.'
'Such times were few and far between,' pointed out la lab Vita-37. 'And they never lasted.'
As if to reinforce her point, the curve-walled chamber at the heart of the moon shook with the impact of nearby detonations. Grey dust spilled from cracks in the ceiling. It danced in the suspensor fields surrounding Heliosa-54's floating, cursive-spined form. Fractal patterns of dust glittered in the actinic light thrown out by the gently spinning gene-looms woven into the stone walls.
The pneuma-tubes along Heliosa-54's neck pulsed in time with her frosted breath, crafting a twisting helix at her throat.
'Why does the Emperor seek to destroy us?' asked Ta'lab Vita-37.
'The Emperor does not seek to destroy us.'
Ta'lab Vita-37 extended a curved, talon-like fingertip, hooking a disc of noospheric light from the gloss-black of the command console and lifting it up between them.
A rapidly shrinking noose of red light converged on their location, a silver icon of the crescent moon. Previously muted vox-channels surged with screams of the doomed and dying. The unmistakable bangs of bolter fire and shrieking plasma explosions formed a deafening cacophony of slaughter.
'All available data suggests otherwise,' she said. 'Warriors of the Seventh and Sixteenth Legions are slaughtering everything in their path. Our cults are dying as we speak.'
The howls of their attackers were a screeching din that scraped the spine, feral war-shouts of men born in the dark and raised on murder. Such men would accept nothing less than the complete destruction of whoever dared stand before them.
'The Emperor does not seek to destroy us,' repeated Heliosa-54. 'He seeks to yoke us to His great work. Not without some justification, He hopes we fear annihilation more than servitude. His hubris requires our science, our looms and our mysteries. He knows much, but He does not know everything.'
'Is that why you brought me here?' asked Ta'lab Vita-37. 'Is that why you still remain?'
'Yes. If the Emperor's killers do not find me here, they will tear Luna apart until they do. They will break me and I will be forced to give them the Magna Mater.'
Ta'lab Vita-37 flinched at the thought, and said, 'What is it you require of me?’
Heliosa-54 extended a dextrous, needle-like hand, one whose fingertips had crafted gene-sequences of such dizzying complexity that it seemed inconceivable they did not belong to some ancient creator goddess.
'To forsake me,' said Heliosa-54.
'I do not understand,' said Ta'lab Vita-37.
Data flowed between them, coiling spirals of light bearing gene sequences, marker codes and swathes of information so complex it made Ta'lab Vita-37 gasp at the density of inload.
‘Go below to the Ergodic Vault. Sever your connections to the Luna Manifold, take the Magna Mater and vanish. I cannot divulge what I do not know. Too few of the high priestesses remain alive to destroy the Magna Mater, so you must keep it from the Emperor, you understand?'
'I understand,' said Ta'lab Vita-37.
Heliosa-54 saw Ta'lab Vita-37's shoulders slump, the gene-maiden already burdened by the terrible duty she had placed upon her.
'And if they should eventually find me?'
'Then pray that he who takes the Magna Mater is a wiser soul and has greater vision than Terra's new master.'
Ta'lab Vita-37 bowed, clasping her hands across her chest.
'It shall be as you say, revered matriarch,' she said. 'I will not fail you.'
Heliosa-54 did not watch her go, already beginning a mnemonic purge. Sadness touched her as precious memories burned away in the fires of synaptic erasure. She had loved Ta'lab Vita-37 as a daughter, but could not allow any trace of the gene-maiden to be found within her neural network.
She turned back to the console.
Barely six hours had passed since the sudden, shocking assault of the brute-crafted gene-warriors from Terra.
Every war front on Luna told the same story of defeat.
Her heart heavy with fear for the future, the High Matriarch of Luna opened a broad-spectrum vox-channel.
She knew the Emperor would hear her.
She hoped His warriors would.
'Call off your wolves,' she begged.
BOOK 1
MAIDEN
She is a wild, tangled forest with temples
and treasures concealed within.
1
A Captain Remade
Skeleton Crew
Carnager
How best should a warrior die?
He had given much thought to this over the years. As a neophyte, he imagined his end would come in a terrible war against some hideous xenoform, fighting side by side with his brothers for a noble and heroic cause. His last moments would come in a battle spoken of in awe by the warriors of ages yet to pass.
In the following millennia, lessons learned from his end would be taught in every academy of war - requ
ired reading for the youth of this new age.
Libraries of books would be written of that bloody time.
But war cares nothing for the arrogant imaginings of young men.
Its teachings are bloody and indifferent.
Yes, heroes are forged in the crucible of combat, and the legacies of a handful live on in the memories of those who endure. But tor every hero whose deeds transcend their death, tens of thousands more are forgotten or never known at all.
Their courage goes unrecorded.
Their stories are never told.
Nykona Sharrowkyn was no longer a neophyte, and ever since Sabik Wayland had dragged his ruined body from the betrayal on Isstvan V, he'd long known he would die in the dark, alone and unremembered.
A fitting end for a warrior of the Raven Guard.
How best should a warrior die?
In a little over two minutes, he'd likely find out.
Spots of light flickered like auspex glitches on the ochre orb of Jupiter, which filled the Sisypheum's viewscreen. But they weren't glitches, they were burning weapons platforms struck from their orbital anchors and now dragged to destruction by the vast planet's gravity. In the foreground, pyrochemical lightning and ash storms distorted the gun-metal ellipse of Ganymede as its vast hydro-stacks burned in the fury of traitor bombardments.
The Solar War was raging, hot and bright, but drawing inexorably closer to Terra from the outer-system planets. The Warmaster was tightening his noose, but every minute the loyalists kept the traitors from the Throneworld's glory was a victory.
Dying ships blazed in Jupiter's high orbit, skeletons of blackened metal alight from within. Atomic storms raged in their wakes as millions of megatons of ship-killing ordnance detonated like distant supernovas.
Not as distant as Nykona Sharrowkyn would have liked.
Swarms of torpedoes flew hot in the void. Macro shells lit up space in blinding explosions. Banks of lasers blinked in collimated lines of actinic brightness.
Something detonated off the ventral axis. Sharrowkyn had no idea what it might have been. A torpedo warhead? A ship exploding? A hunter-killer mine?
Three hundred and sixty-seven ships manoeuvred aggressively within the Jovian engagement volume. Escorts and destroyers mostly At least seventy vessels of capital displacement also Sharrowkyn had little skill in coordinating void fights or the operation of a starship, but after the disastrous mission to Lema Two-Twelve and the decimation of the Sisypheum's crew, he'd had to learn something of the craft.