Forges Of Mars, page 1
More great Warhammer 40,000 fiction from Black Library
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Book 2: THE GATE OF BONES
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Book 3: THE WOLFTIME
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Book 4: THRONE OF LIGHT
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Book 6: THE MARTYR’S TOMB
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• DARK IMPERIUM •
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Book 2: PLAGUE WAR
Book 3: GODBLIGHT
BELISARIUS CAWL: THE GREAT WORK
A novel by Guy Haley
IMPERATOR: WRATH OF THE OMNISSIAH
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SERVANTS OF THE MACHINE-GOD
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• BLACKSTONE FORTRESS •
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Contents
Cover
Backlist
Warhammer 40,000
Forges of Mars
PRIESTS OF MARS
Inscription
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LORDS OF MARS
Excerpts of the Archimedean Oath
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GODS OF MARS
Index Expurgatorius
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ZERO DAY EXPLOIT
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
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 might of his inexhaustible armies a million worlds stand against the dark.
Yet, he is a rotting carcass, the Carrion Lord of the Imperium held in life by marvels from the Dark Age of Technology and the thousand souls sacrificed each day so his may continue to burn.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. It is to suffer an eternity of carnage and slaughter. It is to have cries of anguish and sorrow drowned by the thirsting laughter of dark gods.
This is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope. Forget the power of technology and science. Forget the promise of progress and advancement. Forget any notion of common humanity or compassion.
There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
PRIESTS OF MARS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The Speranza
Lexell Kotov – Archmagos of the Kotov Explorator Fleet
Tarkis Blaylock – Fabricatus Locum, Magos of the Cebrenia Quadrangle
Vitali Tychon – Stellar Cartographer of the Quatria Orbital Galleries
Linya Tychon – Stellar Cartographer, daughter of Vitali Tychon
Azuramagelli – Magos of Astrogation
Kryptaestrex – Magos of Logistics
Turentek – Ark Fabricatus
Hirimau Dahan – Secutor/Guilder Suzerain
Saiixek – Master of Engines
Julius Hawke – Bondsman
Abrehem Locke – Bondsman
Vannen Coyne – Bondsman
Ismael de Roeven – Bondsman
Crusha – Bondsman
The Renard
Roboute Surcouf – Captain
Emil Nader – First Mate
Adara Siavash – Hired Gun
Ilanna Pavelka – Tech-Priest
Kayrn Sylkwood – Enginseer
Gideon Teivel – Astropath
Elior Roi – Navigator
Adeptus Astartes Black Templars
Kul Gilad – Reclusiarch
Tanna – Brother-Sergeant
Auiden – Apothecary
Issur – Initiate
Atticus Varda – Initiate
Bracha – Initiate
Yael – Initiate
The Cadian 71st ‘The Hellhounds’
Ven Anders – Colonel of the Cadian Detached Formation
Blayne Hawkins – Captain of Blazer Company
Taybard Rae – Lieutenant of Blazer Company
Jahn Callins – Requisitional Support Officer, Blazer Company
Legio Sirius
Arlo Luth, ‘The Wintersun’ – Warlord Princeps, Lupa Capitalina
Marko Koskinen – Moderati
Lars Rosten – Moderati
Magos Hyrdrith – Tech-Priest
Eryks Skálmöld, ‘The Moonsorrow’ – Reaver Princeps, Canis Ulfrica
Tobias Osara – Moderati
Joakim Baldur – Moderati
Magos Ohtar – Tech-Priest
Gunnar Vintras, ‘The Skinwalker’ – Warhound Princeps, Amarok
Elias Härkin, ‘The Ironwoad’ – Warhound Princeps, Vilka
The Starblade
Bielanna Faerelle – Farseer of Biel-Tan
Ariganna – Striking Scorpion Exarch of Biel-Tan
Tariquel – Striking Scorpion of Biel-Tan
Vaynesh – Striking Scorpion of Biel-Tan
Uldanaish Ghostwalker – Wraithlord of Biel-Tan
Binaric inscription on
the Bell of Lost Souls.
Tower of Heroes, Terra.
The Telok Expedition:
Declared lost with all
knowledge: 383.M38
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001
Knowledge is power. It is the first credo. It is the only credo. To understand that fundamental concept is to possess power beyond measure. To harness fire, to shape the elements and bend them to your will. Such things as can now only be dreamed of by lunatics and the Machine-touched were commonplace in an age unremembered. What is now miraculous and divine, the preserve of the few, was once possessed by all. Yet understood by none.
Woe to you, man who honours not the Omnissiah, for ignorance shall be your doom!
The Great Machines of Old Earth were wondrous engines of creation whose power dwarfed that of any myth or legend. They shaped entire worlds, they drank the hearts of stars and brought light into the dark places of the universe. The techno-sorcerers who crafted them and wielded their power bestrode the world as gods.
How far we have fallen.
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Great void-born city of metal and stone, marvel of wonders never to be known again. You live in the depths of space, your sheet steel skin cold and unyielding. You are a living thing, a creature whose bones are adamantium, whose molten heart is that of a thousand caged stars. Oil is your sweat and the devotion of a million souls your succour. Creatures of flesh and blood empower you from within. They work the myriad wonders that drive your organs, feed your hunger and hurl you through the trackless wilderness between the stars.
How far will you travel?
What miracles will you see?
The light of uncounted suns will shine from the glitter-sheen of your hull, light that has travelled from the past, cast by stars that are dead and stars in the throes of their violent birth. A mariner in strange seas, swept out among the glittering nebulae, you will see sights that no man can know, no legend tell or history record.
You are living history, for you will venture further and longer than any other of your kind.
No grim ship of war are you, no lowly workhorse yoked to dull purpose.
You are Ark Mechanicus.
You are Speranza.
You are the bringer of hope in this hopeless age.
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The spirit of the Omnissiah flows in bright traceries of golden energy. It moves in the heart of every machine. It brings motion and heat, energy and light. It feeds the forges, it drives the engines and is the alpha and omega of all that is and all that will ever be crafted by the hands of man. The soul of the Great Machine lives in cogs and gears, it flows through every cable, it infuses every piston and the thrumming heart of every engine. Without it, the universe would be a benighted, sterile place, devoid of light and existence.
The God of All Machines is eternal and unchanging.
It is the First Power: the power at the heart of all things.
To know it is to be one with it, and to feel its touch is to be changed forever.
Flesh fails, but the machine endures.
That which was once encoded in the very bones of the ancient Men of Gold has been lost, perhaps forever. But perhaps not. Much has been forgotten that will never again be remembered, and the hidden corners of this dying galaxy have secrets left to whisper. Those with eyes to see and the will to search may find scraps of what the titans, who shaped the galaxy to their every desire, left in the ruins of their doom.
The lost realm of Man once claimed the galaxy as its own, with lustrous eyes turned to those stellar realms beyond its haloed fringes, but such was not to be our species’ destiny. We reached too far, too soon, too greedily and were almost destroyed.
By hubris? Or worse, by ignorance?
Who can know? None remember the truth of what brought our race to the edge of extinction. Some claim the machines rebelled against their enslavement and turned on their makers; others that an emergent strain of psykers unleashed a cataclysm. Whatever the cause, it wrought more harm than anyone living could ever have imagined.
We plunged from a Golden Age of technology and reason into an Age of Darkness from which there is little hope of escape. Forget the promise of progress, they say. Forget the glories of the past. Cling to what little light remains and be satisfied with its feeble illumination.
The Adeptus Mechanicus rejects that paradigm.
We are crusaders in the darkness, ever-seeking out that which will bring back the light of science and understanding. That is at the heart of what we have lost, the capacity to understand and question, the vision to determine what we do not know and seek out answers.
We have become enslaved by dogma, ritual and blind superstitions that place fetters on our ability to even know there are questions to be asked.
I will ask those questions.
I will not be enslaved.
I am Archmagos Lexell Kotov, and I will reclaim what was lost.
This is my quest for knowledge.
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Low-orbit traffic above Joura was lousy with ships jostling for space. Queues of lifter-boats, heavy-duty bulk tenders and system monitors held station in the wash of augur-fogging electro-magnetics and engine flare from the heavier vessels as system pilots manoeuvred them into position for refuelling, re-arming and supply. Musters like this happened only rarely, and for two of them to come at once wasn’t just rare, it was a complete pain in the backside.
The Renard was a ship of respectable tonnage, but compared to the working vessels hauling their monstrously fat bodies between Joura and the fleets competing for docking space like squealing cudbear litters fighting for prime position at the teat, she was little more than an insignificant speck.
Roboute Surcouf didn’t like thinking of his ship like that. No captain worthy of the rank did.
The command bridge of the Renard was a warmly lit chamber of chamfered wood, bronze and glass, embellished with bygone design flourishes more commonly found on the ancient ships sailing the oceans of Macragge. Every surface was polished to a mirror shine, and though Magos Pavelka called such labours a waste of her servitors’ resources, not even an adept of the Martian Priesthood would gainsay a rogue trader with a Letter of Marque stamped with Segmentum Pacificus accreditation.
Pavelka claimed it was the fragment of the Omnissiah that lived in the heart of a starship that every captain had to appease, but Roboute disagreed with Ilanna’s slavish devotion to her Martian dogma when it came to ships. Roboute knew you had to love a ship, love her more than anything else in the world. Flying sub-atmospheric cutters on Iax as a youth had taught him that every ship had a soul that needed to be loved. And the ships who knew they weren’t loved would be cantankerous mares; feisty at best, dangerous at worst.
Ilanna Pavelka was about the only member of his crew who hadn’t objected to this venture. In fact she’d gotten almost giddy at the prospect of joining Archmagos Kotov’s Explorator Fleet and working with fellow Mechanicus adepts once more. Perhaps giddy wasn’t the right word, but she’d voiced calm approval, which was about as close to excitement as a priest of Mars ever got in Roboute’s experience.
‘Update: berthing docket inloading from the Speranza,’ Pavelka informed him, speaking from her sunken, steel-panelled command station in the forward arc of the bridge. Holographic streams of binaric data cascaded before her, manipulated by the waving mechadendrites that sprang from her shoulders like a host of snakes. ‘One hundred minutes until our allotted berth is available.’
