The Crimson King Read online

  Backlist

  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

  More tales from the Horus Heresy...

  CYBERNETICA

  SONS OF THE FORGE

  WOLF KING

  PROMETHEAN SUN

  AURELIAN

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM

  THE CRIMSON FIST

  PRINCE OF CROWS

  DEATH AND DEFIANCE

  TALLARN: EXECUTIONER

  SCORCHED EARTH

  BLADES OF THE TRAITOR

  THE PURGE

  THE HONOURED

  THE UNBURDENED

  RAVENLORD

  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

  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

  WOLF HUNT

  HUNTER’S MOON

  THIEF OF REVELATIONS

  TEMPLAR

  ECHOES OF RUIN

  MASTER OF THE FIRST

  THE LONG NIGHT

  IRON CORPSES

  RAPTOR

  Download the full range of Horus Heresy audio dramas from blacklibrary.com

  Also available

  MACRAGGE’S HONOUR

  A Horus Heresy graphic novel

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Part Two

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Part Three

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Afterword

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  The Horus Heresy

  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 age of knowledge and enlightenment has ended.

  The Age of Darkness has begun.

  ~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~

  The Primarchs

  Magnus the Red, Primarch of the Thousand Sons

  Lorgar, Primarch of the Word Bearers

  The XV Legion, ‘Thousand Sons’

  Ahzek Ahriman, Chief Librarian

  Amon, Equerry to the primarch

  Hathor Maat, Adept of the Pavoni

  Sobek, Equerry to Ahriman

  Menkaura, Adept of the Corvidae

  Sanakht, Adept of the Athanaean

  Tolbek, Adept of the Pyrae

  Ignis, Adept of the Order of Ruin

  The VI Legion, ‘Space Wolves’

  Bödvar Bjarki, Rune Priest of Tra

  Svafnir Rackwulf, Woe-maker of Tra

  Olgyr Widdowsyn, Shield bearer

  Gierlothnir Helblind, Shield bearer

  Harr Balegyr, Berserker

  Imperial Personae

  Malcador, The Sigillite, Regent of Terra

  Yasu Nagasena, Chosen, the Hound of Malcador

  Dio Promus, Knight Errant, former Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines

  Antaka Cyvaan, Former Librarian of the Raven Guard

  Umwelt Uexküll, Cybertheurgist, Taghmata Omnissiah

  Credence Araxe, Mechanicum magos, Master of Ursarax

  Zygman Videns, Mechanicum magos, statistical prognosticator

  Vindicatrix, Vorax-class battle-automata

  Caesaria Laventure, Warden of Kamiti Sona

  Lady Veleda, Cartomancer

  Jambik Sosruko, Migou, son of Lady
Veleda

  Lemuel Gaumon, Former remembrancer

  Camille Shivani, Former remembrancer

  Chaiya Parvati, Survivor of Prospero

  One evening an outcast gothi arrived at the aett of the Ascommani. The arrival of a raven-seer was a sign of coming bad stars, but the chief knew better than to turn him away. He brought him to his hearth fire and broke marrow with him. And in return, the gothi told the aett-chief of a battle fought within the heart of every warrior of the ice-born.

  He said, ‘Listen well, lord of the aett – this battle is fought between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, humility, benevolence, empathy, truth, compassion, and faith.’

  The Ascommani chief thought on this for a full passage of the moon. And when the shadows fled and the sun turned the pack ice to glass, he asked, ‘Which wolf wins?’

  The gothi simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’

  – from Ahmad Ibn Rustah’s

  The Upplander’s Tale (unpublished)

  Time has run out.

  Night falls on the Imperium, but this New Night will not be an age of darkness. It will be one of pitiless illumination, blazing with the pyres of mankind’s doom. Such fearful radiance makes two warring shadows in every soul. The darkness of the tyrant wrestles the light of the liberator, and by such struggles are the true measure of heroes reckoned.

  What of myself?

  Am I good?

  I believe I am, but how much stock can I put in belief?

  Between Malcador’s questions and Dorn’s demands I walk the shores of the subterranean lake beyond this villa – a structure clearly intended for a being of my scale – and see my reflection in its dark waters.

  But is the copper-skinned visage looking back truly me?

  This question has occupied a great deal of my time since the breaking open of the golden doors and my attempts to undo the damage I caused.

  It is an aspect of me, of Magnus.

  This at least seems certain.

  A good aspect, I like to think – perhaps the best. The face that meets my gaze is one that knows just the right measure of pride, nobility and intelligence. It is a soul tempered with the understanding that there is always more to learn, always someone cleverer.

  I have come to realise it is but one of many aspects of Magnus the Red.

  Like a statue cast upon the ground, my subtle body was broken into shards by the Wolf King and scattered on the tides of the Great Ocean. Do the other fragments of the Crimson King think of themselves as I do? Are they even aware of the existence of others? Or do they fancy themselves alone, and, by such force of narrative gravity, does each believe itself to be pre-eminent?

  Perhaps, but surely all must concede that he who dwells atop the cyclopean tower on that unnameable world within the empyrean is the whole from which we were split.

  Lofty questions with no easy answers, but I have little else to occupy my mind as I sit alone on this frigid lakeshore and contemplate the path that has led me to this point.

  Such introspection always leads me back to Horus.

  Though my brother has become something monstrous and utterly inhuman, I long for a sight of him. I long for the stars overhead instead of kilometres-thick layers of bioluminescent rock. I long for the comforting reality of an age when the universe made sense.

  But as it becomes ever more difficult to separate reality from fantasy, I grow less sure every day there is even a difference.

  We perceive reality through a veil.

  We imagine we enforce rigorous standards upon our beliefs, telling ourselves to accept only what we have proven beyond doubt. This is wilful self-deceit. The wider our view of the universe becomes, the more our beliefs must come to us second-hand. Our reliance on higher authorities forms almost every aspect of our world view.

  I belabour this point to ensure there is no misunderstanding as to why we of the Thousand Sons believed we knew the truth of reality.

  We believed it because the Emperor told us it was true.

  How naive that now seems.

  It is easy to see why we believed Him.

  My father wrought life from lifelessness, something from nothing. He willed the illusion of sentience to coalesce around implied centres of cognition that did not exist until he declared it so. A magnificent achievement, unheralded in all the annals of human endeavour.

  But magnificence alone does not make one infallible.

  Even memory, that most unreliable of narrators, is based on shared recollections. Actual truth is secondary to agreed truth. I say these things so that when accounts are prepared that tell of this great conflict, you will know to armour your credulity with the notion that not all truths are created equal.

  But one truth I have found to be incontrovertible is this:

  Old friends make the worst enemies.

  Part One

  The Weighing

  of the Heart

  One

  Torquetum

  Temelucha

  Choose wisely

  ‘The horizon is wrong,’ said Hathor Maat, and Ahriman felt the psychic pressure of the Pavoni adept’s power as he altered his internal biology to better cope with the magnificent orbital’s disorientating perspectives.

  ‘In what way?’ asked Ahriman.

  ‘In the way that there isn’t one.’

  That wasn’t exactly true, but Hathor Maat had a point. There was a horizon, just not one immediately recognisable as such.

  The Torquetum was an open, latticework globe of nine interlocking rings in constant motion. The smallest was thirty-six kilometres in diameter, the largest fifty-four. Viewed through the oculus on the bridge of the Khemet it had seemed impossibly fragile, yet its dimensions were the equal of Calth’s orbital anchorages.

  Matching speed and aspect, the hawk-winged Stormbird had borne the six Legion warriors to the edge of a glittering forest of warp vanes on the inner face of the Torquetum’s equinoctial ring.

  Perspective made its structure taper as it arced overhead in a gentle upward slope before reaching its apex of curvature and reversing to descend behind them. Each ring’s curve was perfectly proportioned, and at the centre of the slowly rotating concentric arrangement was a bronzed sphere held fast by a connecting shaft running between two polar braces.

  Transhuman biology combined with powered battleplate should have rendered the Legion warriors immune to vertigo, but the orbital’s incredible structure was doing its best to test that. Even Lucius of the Emperor’s Children and Sanakht of the Athanaeans, consummate bladesmen both, stepped cautiously.

  Tolbek of the Pyrae was a coiled spring, his ascendant power simmering close to the surface. Ahriman’s Corvidae Practicus, Sobek, kept close to his master, doing his best to conceal his spatial discomfort.

  Only Menkaura appeared unaffected, the venerable battle-seer revelling in their disquieting surroundings.

  ‘A magnificent structure,’ he said, as a crystal-and-bronze arrangement of oculus lenses, encrusted with psychic resonators, slid soundlessly through space a thousand metres overhead.

  Ahriman nodded and recited a Corvidae mantra, easing his consciousness into the lower enumerations. The churning sensation in his gut subsided only slightly.

  ‘True,’ he agreed, lifting his gaze to the vast maelstrom of warp energy filling the void beyond the Torquetum’s wirework structure, ‘but its masters have chosen to observe a uniquely dangerous phenomenon.’

  ‘The Eye of Terror,’ whispered Menkaura, the words echoing like a curse within Ahriman’s helm.

  ‘A name freighted with familiarity, though I cannot remember knowing it until recently.’

  ‘Inde
ed,’ said Menkaura. ‘As though this area of space has always cleaved to the name and only now chooses to reveal it.’

  ‘An interesting theory,’ said Ahriman. ‘Further discussion is perhaps best saved until our mission is complete.’

  Though apparently open to the void, an integrity field larger than anything Ahriman had previously encountered maintained a breathable atmosphere within the Torquetum’s rings and kept the full force of the Eye at bay. Every surface crackled with warp ghosts, flickering images at the corner of the eye that vanished as soon as they were noticed.

  ‘The structure is misnamed,’ said Sobek, sickly warp light reflecting on his helm’s coppered visor. The crimson of his armour reminded Ahriman of sunsets reflecting from the Tizcan pyramids. The original ones, not the skeletal ruins scattered in the lightning-wracked deserts of their adopted refuge.

  ‘How so?’ said Tolbek, dropping to one knee and placing a palm on the metal deck plates. Blue flames sprang to life around his black gauntlet, slithering from his arm like questing snakes in search of prey.

  Sobek waved his heqa staff, its ivory length topped by a mass of carven eyes. ‘It more resembles a vast armillary sphere. A primitive heliocentric model of the celestial vault, with a spherical framework of rings representing astral longitudes and latitudes.’

  Ahriman moved past his Practicus, kneeling at a five-metre-wide focus-aperture in the ring upon which they had landed. No matter that the equinoctial portion of the Torquetum was a kilometre wide and a hundred metres thick, it still felt absurdly fragile to be moving at speed through the void.

  Perfectly framed within the aperture’s lens was the bronzed sphere at the heart of the Torquetum. Exactly fifteen kilometres in diameter, the geocentric rings encircling it turned with artful grace.

  Ahriman’s eyes told him the globe was below him, but the knot of vertigo in his gut insisted he should be falling upwards.

  ‘So if this is an observatory, where are the observers?’ said Tolbek, extinguishing the flames enveloping his gauntlet. ‘We are here at the appointed site, and should not linger in open space where the dogs of Russ might catch our scent. We have not the strength to defend ourselves.’

  The Pyrae had ever been the bluntest of psychic disciplines among the Legion, but with the inevitable turning of the Great Ocean, their Fellowship was now in ascendance. As the seersight of the Corvidae waned, the Pyrae’s strength waxed.