The Silent King, page 1
Praise for Book One
Dawn of Fire: Avenging Son
by Guy Haley
‘The beginning of an essential new epic: heroic, cataclysmic and vast in scope. Guy has delivered exactly what 40K readers crave, and lit the fuse on the Dark Millennium. This far future’s
about to detonate…’
Dan Abnett, author of Horus Rising
‘With all the thunderous scope of The Horus Heresy, a magnificent new saga begins.’
Peter McLean, author of Priest of Bones
‘A perfect blending of themes – characters that are raw, real and wonderfully human, set against a backdrop of battle and mythology’.
Danie Ware, author of Ecko Rising
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Contents
Cover
Praise
Warhammer 40,000
The Silent King
Dramatis Personae
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Notes on the Crusade
About the Author
An Extract from ‘The Infinite and the Divine’
Backlist
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.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
fleet primus
Roboute Guilliman – The Imperial Regent, the Avenging Son, the Last Loyal Son, the Returned and Sainted Primarch
Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl – Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah
Maldovar Colquan – Stratarchis Tribune, Adeptus Custodes
Isaiah Khestrin – Fleetmaster
Illiyanne Natasé – Farseer, envoy of Eldrad Ulthran
Dho Gan Mey – Rear admiral, Navis Imperialis, Council Exterra
paradyce ii reclamation force
Gracia Emmanuelle – Canoness, the Order of the Argent Shroud, Gathalamor Preceptory
Marian – Palatine, the Order of the Argent Shroud, Gathalamor Preceptory
Trilthoilis – Captain, Rillian 398th Pioneers
Jelk – Lay preacher, Frateris militia
Shanni Saintsgift – Blessed daughter of the Emperor, Frateris militia
servants of cawl
Qvo-87 – Reconstituted friend
Alpha Primus – Unsanctioned experiment
fleet tertius
Cassandra, the Lady VanLeskus – Vodine Sergastae hereditary general, fleetmistress
Darvian, the Lord VanLeskus – Husband to Cassandra
Vitrian Messinius – Captain, 10th Company, White Consuls/lord lieutenant Fleet Tertius Greyshields, acting commander Battle Group Jovian
Selwin – Mortal steward to the lord lieutenant
Thothven – Captain, First Battalion, Second Company, First Brotherhood of the Unnumbered Sons of Guilliman
Yuulk – Shipmaster, Faith’s Anvil
Faey Balevolio – Navigator, Faith’s Anvil
Tillanus – Epistolary, Second Company, First Brotherhood of the Unnumbered Sons of Guilliman
GonFeest – Epistolary, Second Company, First Brotherhood of the Unnumbered Sons of Guilliman
Artesian – Battle-brother, Second Company, First Brotherhood of the Unnumbered Sons of Guilliman
Allon – Greaser, kappa grease gang, Faith’s Anvil
Oost – Greaser, kappa grease gang, Faith’s Anvil
Filtz – Greaser, kappa grease gang, Faith’s Anvil
Ivers – Greasemaster, kappa grease gang, Faith’s Anvil
Golus – Greasemaster, kappa grease gang, Faith’s Anvil
battle group iolus
Eloise Athagey – Commodore and groupmaster
Finnula Diomed – First lieutenant and shipmistress, Saint Aster
adeptus mechanicus
Q-Lint SpaForrix3 – Archmagos Dominus, Theta-19 (Explorator) Reclamator/Purgation cohort
Eph-Eph-9-Sigma-9 – Magos Logis
Tol – Skitarii Marshal
Camalin Hiax 43-Tau-Omicron – Magos Perscrutor
Chul-phi – Myrmidon-penitent
Osel-den – Sub-magos
89-7 – Datasmith
Visscher – Navigator, Purity of Steel
Zellopine – Mechasapient, Balor Prime Marshalling Yards
Chapter One
purgation cohort
archmagos q-lint
rare prizes
On a desolate world, two armies faced one another across a field of rock. On the hills around the plain, a hardy lichen analogue grew in sufficient amounts to lace the atmosphere with oxygen. It was the sole life form. The world was so insignificant it had a numeric code string in place of a name. It was possible it had once teemed with life. Now it did not. A large, solitary moon stared down askance, mourning what might have been. Arid, remote, too expensive and too bare of resources to be worth colonising, the planet would have held no interest for the Imperium of Man were it not for the xenos ruins cluttering the northern hemisphere.
They were not really ruins. That they should be thought so was an assumption long disproved. A few hundred years ago the designation had some justification. Ruins like them were encountered across the galaxy, just another tomb complex of vanished species 19342q8756/Kappa. The ruins would have been catalogued and plundered by one arm or another of the Imperium, and that would have been that. Many similar sites suffered the same fate, and doubtless all of them would have eventually, had their occupants not begun to stir.
Slowly, the growing list of vanished expeditions to such sites began to tell. Notice was taken. Larger forces were sent. Necrons, the xenos were called. Alien androids from the distant past. They were added to the list of threats already faced by the Imperium.
Yet the designation of their artefact worlds remained the same for a long time: xenos ruins, medium interest, common type. Threat level: low. Bureaucracy changes slowly.
Archmagos Dominus Q-Lint SpaForrix3, commander of the Theta-19 (Explorator) Reclamator/Purgation cohort, knew the threat. Since before the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, Q-Lint’s role had been the discovery, exploitation and destruction of tomb complexes exactly like the one on this world. He had done so a great many times. He knew the xenos for what they were, as soulless, abominable intelligences, an affront to the Machine God. He despised them for it, and was efficient in their eradication.
On one side of the plain were Q-Lint’s forces, the cybernetic soldiers of the Adeptus Mechanicus of Mars. They regarded the human species as the rightful rulers of the galaxy, as all humans, of whatever type, usually did.
On the other side of the plain, beneath a hemisphere of translucent green energy, stood a legion of necrons, recently revived. They also believed
This made peaceful resolutions between the two species unlikely.
The humans regarded the necrons as abominations. Those necrons still capable of thought regarded the humans as inconsequential primitives. They stared with mutual hatred at one another across crumbled shale, through thin air hazy with dust, metal fingers upon triggers. Battle would start for certain, the only question was when. When it was done, one side would remain. The losers would be annihilated.
Neither side would admit it, but they were not so very different. Both were born from bipedal, bisymmetrical sentients of a roughly similar body plan. Both followed questionable gods. Both began by despising the weakness of flesh, and both followed, by different paths, a destiny that ended in the final replacement of flesh by machine. The necrons had completed that journey, the Adeptus Mechanicus were well on their way. Q-Lint could see the threat of the alien, but he could not see the irony that he was chasing their ultimate fate.
Deadly weapons hummed with pent-up energies. The humans outnumbered the necrons; the necrons were safe behind their power shield. Impasse.
For the moment, nothing moved.
It would not remain that way for long.
Archmagos Dominus Q-Lint SpaForrix3 looked out from his pulpit over the barrel of his abeyant’s eradication beamer at the army of necrons. They had been issuing from the small tomb complex for hours. Now they were utterly still.
Altogether chilling, Q-Lint thought. Soulless, devoid of will or direction, how completely they have abandoned their souls. Imagine, he thought with disgust, giving up all vestiges of your sacred being, and imprisoning your mind in cold, unfeeling metal. They had sold their souls for a fool’s immortality.
Q-Lint was taken with his musings. He felt a binary sonnet in the offing, so filed the thoughts away for later in the auxiliary mem-unit bolted to the side of the nine-legged abeyant.
Q-Lint’s forces were lined up as neatly as their foes. Skitarii vanguard units in the main, numbering several thousand, with the support of legged tanks and artillery, flyers and heavy servitor units. The usual complement for a mid-range purgation force, though he had a few little extras. He was particularly proud to count two dozen war automata of the Legio Cybernetica among his assets.
Nothing moved. Nobody spoke. Machines hummed. The wind blew.
The walker tanks obeyed immediately. High-energy neutron lasers burned through the air, making it crackle. Solid munitions slammed into the shield after them. The shield flared bright. He let the bombardment go on for over a minute.
‘That should do it,’ he said aloud, in the Lingua Technis, from the voxmitter in his chest.
The attack ceased. Smoke blew away in ragged sheets. A line of glowing rock marked the boundary of the power field. Steam that smelled of burnt minerals rolled back towards the Adeptus Mechanicus lines.
Q-Lint had a profligate number of handsome ocular implants. He ran them up to maximum magnification and linked their feeds. A composite image formed in his mind of near-supernatural acuity.
Ancient, thin lips pursed. Nothing had got through. The necrons stood unaffected. No damage. Q-Lint’s leathery tongue poked out, and he grinned. Tol was right, it was a challenge, but Tol only saw things in military terms. It was also a fine prize. A hard power field of that size and impenetrability was rare. There were human examples, from the Dark Ages, though there were not many left at all. He had never seen one on a necron world.
He longed to get his manipulators on it, see how it ticked. His claws itched, literally itched. A residual synaptic illusion, since he had replaced his hands long ago with superior bionics, but the sensation was real enough.
‘Yes, yes, thank you for that, Sigma-9,’ Q-Lint muttered. A few of his command cadre gave out beeps as they recorded the scene for posterity. An autoquill scratched over a scroll somewhere at the back of the group.
Q-Lint upped magnification further. The enemy seemed in poor repair, he thought. Many had slumped, crook-backed stances, their thin metal arms almost dragging on the ground. The glowing lights associated with necron technology were out on some of their weapons, suggesting malfunction. Some of the warriors missed jaws or hands. All were corroded.
Another sign of necron inferiority, he thought. Not the shield, that was an impressive example of transdimensional technology. The inferiority was the mismatch of high technology guarding such broken-down automata. Tragic, really. They must have been a powerful race once. He almost pitied them.
He neglected to recall the ongoing war that gripped much of the Martian empire, the tombs waking under their feet, the endless legions of alien dead pouring into Adeptus Mechanicus facilities. The broken incursion into the Pariah Nexus. He put out of his mind that the Adeptus Mechanicus were losing in the Nephilim Sector and in all the sectors around it. He was obsessive, like many magi, focused on his small part of the picture, seeing only his successes on these far-out sentinel planets. He had his task; he would succeed, because he always did. He was proud of that. He forgot pride could be a double-edged sword.
His vision stopped upon the gate into the chief pyramid of the complex. The complex buildings looked natural, having been softened by the tides of time so that their forms were all but lost, and the glossy black of their finish abraded to a dull grey that looked no different to the rock of the world they had been built upon. But they were not native. A simple scan revealed that. Necron presence minor, it read. By his reckoning, the machines on the plain represented the whole of the garrison. This was a good target. He looked forward to the xenotech plunder it would yield.
Q-Lint’s tactical prognostications ran:
One after the other.
Sigma-9 was quiet for a significant sliver of a second. ‘Undetectable,’ he said aloud. He sounded unsure. Transdimensional mechanics was an uncertain discipline. The Adeptus Mechanicus were familiar with the warp, and to a lesser extent with the webway which existed between the materium-immaterium, but the strange intra-dimensional non-places the necrons exploited were a frightening mystery. Even the mathematics that underlaid them was capricious, as if they were alive and responsive somehow, praise the Machine God for the richness of His Great Work, Q-Lint thought. He initiated an auto-prayer cycle to atone for his lapse in respectful awe. Such puzzles were the Machine God’s way of testing the faithful. He had no right to be irritated by them.
‘Hypothesis – are they malfunctioning?’
‘Perhaps they are waiting,’ Sigma-9 suggested.
‘For what?’
‘Unknown.’
‘Necron constructs do not wait,’ said Q-Lint. ‘They attack and purge, as we attack and purge. That is what they always do, unless there are higher forms present to provide alternative orders. I query again, are there higher forms?’
