JAGHATAI KHAN WARHAWK OF CHOGORIS Read online

  BACKLIST

  The Primarchs

  FERRUS MANUS: GORGON OF MEDUSA

  FULGRIM: THE PALATINE PHOENIX

  LORGAR: BEARER OF THE WORD

  PERTURABO: THE HAMMER OF OLYMPIA

  MAGNUS THE RED: MASTER OF PROSPERO

  LEMAN RUSS: THE GREAT WOLF

  ROBOUTE GUILLIMAN: LORD OF ULTRAMAR

  The Horus Heresy series

  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 – BURDEN OF LOYALTY

  Book 49 – WOLFSBANE

  Book 50 – BORN OF FLAME

  More White Scars from Black Library

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM

  SCARS

  THE PATH OF HEAVEN

  THE LAST HUNT

  RESTORER

  STORM OF DAMOCLES

  OVERFIEND

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy

  Preface

  Terra M30.879

  One

  Two

  Three

  Hoadh M30.884

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Chogoris M30.898

  Seven

  Eight

  Gar-Ban-Gar M30.906

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Baal M30.908

  Fourteen

  Ullanor M31.000

  Fifteen

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  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 Mankind conquer the stars in a Great Crusade – the myriad alien races are to be smashed by his 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, as system after system is brought back under his control. Triumphs are raised on a million worlds to record the epic deeds of his most powerful champions.

  First and foremost amongst these are the primarchs, superhuman beings who have led the Space Marine Legions in campaign after campaign. They are unstoppable and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperor’s genetic experimentation, while the Space Marines themselves are the mightiest human warriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of besting a hundred normal men or more in combat.

  Many are the tales told of these legendary beings. From the halls of the Imperial Palace on Terra to the outermost reaches of Ultima Segmentum, their deeds are known to be shaping the very future of the galaxy. But can such souls remain free of doubt and corruption forever? Or will the temptation of greater power prove too much for even the most loyal sons of the Emperor?

  The seeds of heresy have already been sown, and the start of the greatest war in the history of mankind is but a few years away...

  With many thanks to Nick Kyme and Laurie Goulding

  for their sterling editorial guidance.

  PREFACE

  On Chogoris, a tale is told from the time before discord came.

  A sage of Golden Terra made his life’s work the study of the Eighteen. As each son of the Emperor was found, he travelled the stars to seek accounts of their deeds and nature. He collected testimony and submitted many scrolls to the Throneworld for safekeeping. Some of them are still there, they say. Some are lost. Such is the way of things.

  It is said that this sage was sufficiently venerable that he had the ear of the Emperor Himself. One night, before the advent of strife, the two of them walked the Palace walls together. Birds sang – in those days, there were still birds alive on Golden Terra.

  The Emperor, whose face was hidden by splendour, asked the sage how his work was progressing.

  ‘Very well, my liege,’ the sage replied, just as ever unable to look his master in the eye. ‘I have created an archive for you, so that your achievement may be recognised for posterity – the Library of the Primarchs.’

  The Emperor said nothing. On the few occasions when they had spoken together, the sage had rarely known what the Emperor thought, or even if He were truly listening at all. In this, he was not alone, for the thoughts of the Emperor were beyond the thoughts of all mortals.

  ‘It will be a valuable addition, I hope,’ the sage went on, feeling the need to fill the silence with words. ‘Except that it has been easier to study some of your sons than others.’

  Still the Emperor said nothing.

  ‘I do not pretend to understand your plans fully,’ the sage said, ‘and I do not presume to question the nature of those, such as the Lord of the Red Sands, into whom enquiry has been challenging. They are all so different – that, I suppose, is the genius of them. Each has his nature. Each has his gift.’

  The Emperor stopped walking. He looked up into the starry heavens – in those days, the skies of Golden Terra still had stars.

  ‘But then there is the Warhawk,’ said the sage, shaking his head. ‘The Great Khan of the Fifth. Of all of them, I have never come close to him. Whatever his gift is, I remain ignorant of it.’

  It is here that accounts diverge. Some say that the Emperor smiled; others say that the Emperor never smiled. Still others maintain that the Emperor had no human features at all, but was like the light of the sun at noon in an empty sky.

  ‘You wish to know what gift Jaghatai possesses,’ the Emperor said.

  ‘Yes, my liege,’ said the sage. ‘Very much. But nothing is known. Nothing is settled. His entry in the library will be slender, and even that will be supposition and hearsay. Sometimes I wonder if he is real at all, or just the r
umour of a savage people. With him, with this Great Khan, there is only confusion.’

  The Emperor began to walk again.

  ‘There is your answer,’ He said.

  TERRA

  M30.879

  ONE

  The door shivered, its onyx panels already cracked and its carved jambs cracking. A storm blew through it, a roar of gold and white, as elemental as the summer gales on the Altak. A window pane shattered, sending teardrops of glass bouncing.

  Courtiers scattered, hitching up heavy brocade robes and tottering like birds. A woman screamed, while a man stumbled and scrabbled on all fours towards the stairwell.

  The storm paid them no heed. He strode through the crowd, eyes bright with a vital anger, towering over even the greatest and making them appear insignificant. In his wake came two armoured giants, clad in ivory and jasper, their heavy tread resounding on hard floors. All three titans glittered under the wheeling light of disturbed suspensors that set their scabbards and blade-pommels flashing.

  ‘His neck,’ said the Khagan of Chogoris, the Great Khan of the Fifth Legion Astartes, his long black hair flying loose. ‘If He does not learn to bend it, one day it will break.’

  The primarch swept through the antechambers of the Imperial Palace, his cloak hem snapping like a whip about his heels. With him came the twin masters of his young army, Hasik and Giyahun, their bronze faces impassive.

  Gold pillars soared up around them, chased and fluted and spiralled, inlaid with glass and studded with pearls. Marble statuary stood in blank isolation amid the mirrors and the porcelain, barred by the warm light of the Terran dawn.

  A man in the robes of the Senatorum Imperialis emerged at the far end of the long gallery, took one look at the rampaging primarch, then darted out again. Other courtiers shrank back, bowing and stammering.

  ‘The mind – unequalled,’ the Khan growled, swinging into another hall. His closed fist punched out at a bulbous vase, and it shattered into a rain of echoing fragments. ‘But the neck. That is the weakness. That is the flaw.’

  High windows passed by, leaded and mullioned, each offering glimpses of the immensity beyond – parapets rearing above parapets, glare-white from the mountain air. The Palace was a never-ending project, they said, a billion techwrights working on it daily to render the peaks into cathedrals of the mind and the soul, raising up monuments to Unity that would endure for eternity. No guns marred the ramparts in those days, only pennants and propaganda, for war had left Terran skies a lifetime ago and now burned its way across the vaults of a deeper heaven.

  ‘He gazes on the infinite,’ the Khan spat, ‘but we are body, blood and bone.’

  His retinue made no reply. They did not as much as glance at the finery around them; their eyes were fixed forwards, their sun-darkened faces held rigid. Both carried a long scar on their cheeks, zigzagged in ritual imitation of lightning, the kindler-destroyer of the borderless grass. Both understood that they were not being addressed. This was their master in his anger, unleashing the torrent as a mountain unleashes its storms.

  ‘Scorn not your tools, say the sages,’ the Khan said. ‘Scorn not the blade that cuts, lest it open your own veins.’

  Another hall beckoned, another chamber within that cavernous interior, just as ornate, just as immaculate. Jewelled incense-drones swerved out of the primarch’s path, whining as their grav-plates struggled to gain loft.

  The Khan halted at last. More than thirty figures barred the way ahead. Some were armoured as he was, arrayed in a variety of Crusade-pattern war-plate. Others wore the uniforms of the Imperial Army – stiff jerkins, high collars, flak-weave half cloaks. A scattering of them were wrapped in the long robes of officials.

  Jaghatai Khan glared at them hungrily, as if poised to attack. His great fist, locked within an ivory gauntlet, flexed instinctively. The delegation shrank back; it was never easy to look a primarch in the eye, no matter one’s rank or training, and it was almost impossible to face an angry one.

  ‘Who dares this now?’ the Khan demanded.

  Most did not speak. Some looked as if they had lost the capacity. Only one managed to return that gaze, and did so uneasily, as if he feared attracting the storm’s full wrath.

  ‘May it please you, lord,’ he started, ‘the ship is ready.’

  The man was heavily built, old but not decrepit. His skin was lined, his muscle tone rigid, and he wore the dress uniform of an admiral in the Naval high command. In ordinary circumstances, he would have been a man of substance, one from whom many would take an order without question. Perhaps he had commanded many starships, and seen many worlds wreathed in the coronas of battle. Yet right then, just then, as he looked up into the face of one of the Emperor’s sons, he might as well have been a youth of sixteen on his first assignment.

  The Khan rounded on him. ‘What ship?’

  ‘The one ordained for you.’

  ‘Without my knowledge.’ The Khan shot a sour smile at Hasik. ‘It’d better be a good one.’

  The admiral swallowed. ‘The best, lord. The very best. A Gloriana.’

  ‘Those words mean nothing to me.’

  ‘Perhaps, then…’ The admiral’s eyes fell away. ‘Perhaps it would be better to see it, then.’

  As soon as the words left his lips, he went white. He took an involuntary step backwards, flinching as if in anticipation of a blow.

  The Khan stared at him. The air seemed to fizz a little, as if energy were coiling somewhere. The light around them thickened, and the ivory gauntlet clenched into a fist.

  Then the primarch laughed. He looked over at Giyahun, who grinned back.

  ‘He thinks I’ll skin him alive,’ the Khan said, speaking to his gene-son in Khorchin, the kin-speech of the Talskar of Chogoris.

  ‘Give the order, Khagan. My knife grows blunt in this shit shed.’

  ‘Ha. We’re guests, and my Father objects to blood on his fine floors.’ The Khan looked back at the admiral. ‘I was told I had an army,’ he said, reverting back to thickly accented Gothic.

  Another official stepped forwards then, a portly woman with a severe bob and jowly cheeks. ‘Ready for inspection, lord.’

  ‘I was told I had counsellors.’

  A third shuffled into view, a thin man with an augmetic jawline and receding hair. ‘Whenever you wish to consult us, lord.’

  Hasik raised an eyebrow. ‘Never been given an army before,’ he said in Khorchin. ‘Always had to take them.’

  The Khan shot him a dry look. ‘No man gives a gift without expecting another in return. We didn’t come here with our hands full.’

  ‘As they never cease to make clear.’

  The primarch turned back to the first speaker. ‘Where is it, then?’ he asked. For all his imposing demeanour, there was something in that question – an eagerness, only part suppressed by awareness of rank, as if he had been shown some ancient blade only offered to the sons of princes.

  ‘Void-dock above Luna, lord,’ the admiral replied. ‘Ready for examination whenever you deem fit.’

  The Khan scrutinised him a little longer. ‘Who sent you here? Malcador? My Father? You know I come from Him now? You know what we talked of?’ He waved the stuttering answer away. ‘No matter. Take me there – I need to fill my lungs with purer air.’ He glanced back at Hasik. ‘You, go and see this army. See if it’ll fight, or if it’s as slack-gutted as everything else in this place.’

  He gestured for Giyahun to follow him, then paused.

  ‘Where’s Yesugei?’ he asked.

  ‘Exploring,’ ventured Giyahun, shrugging.

  The Khan looked amused. ‘One day that’ll get him into trouble.’ He summoned the admiral with a snap of his fingers. ‘Come. Show me this ship you’re so proud of. It had better be worth the journey.’

  He stood in the chamber, chin raised, looking through the slender window. On the far side of the glass, a bird hopped across the stone sill. He watched it silently. The bird’s head turned, angling a jewelled eye
towards him. For a moment, they stared at one another.

  Then a door creaked, tripping an announcement chime, and the creature fluttered away in a snap of feathers.

  He watched it go, before turning to see who had entered.

  A woman stood in the doorway. She was tall, her face angular. She wore deep green robes and bore the stylised I-icon of the Imperium atop a long metal staff.

  ‘My apologies,’ she said. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

  He bowed. ‘Not at all.’ He beckoned her in. ‘Come.’

  Only when she stepped under the light of the lumens was it apparent how tall she was. Most humans looked like children beside one of the Legiones Astartes, but she didn’t. Perhaps that was due to her physical presence; perhaps something else.

  ‘I was told you’d found your way here,’ she said, looking around the chamber. ‘Not many come this far up.’

  The walls around them were decayed, a mottled stone that had aged and rotted. Packing crates lay about the floor, most filled with old machinery. A defunct cogitator stood in the shadows, its data-maw empty and gaping. The window looked out over far newer reaches of the Palace, all coronets of gold and silver, sharp-edged against the eye-watering dazzle from the mountains.

  ‘Old, this place,’ he said, smiling apologetically. ‘Like me. Too old, they said.’

  The woman leaned against the wall opposite him. ‘For induction into the Legions? It depends. Sometimes the seed takes, sometimes it doesn’t. Your Legion took a surprising number of post-adolescents. I wonder why?’

  ‘Forgive,’ he said, clasping his hands together in gesture of politeness. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Magister Niasta. The office of the Sigillite. I was asked to make myself known to you. That proved harder than anticipated – you don’t stick to your itineraries. None of you do.’

  He bowed. ‘Is true. I am–’

  ‘I know who you are.’ She looked at him carefully, a half-smile playing on her lips. ‘Tell me if I pronounce it right – zadyin arga, Targutai Yesugei.’

  ‘Excellent. You speak Khorchin. If we may?’

  ‘Afraid not. I know those two words, nothing else. They tell me it’s damned hard to learn.’

  Yesugei gave a rueful smile. ‘And other way round. Will take time.’