Throne of light, p.1
Throne Of Light, 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
More Warhammer 40,000 from Black Library
• DAWN OF FIRE •
Book 1: AVENGING SON
Guy Haley
Book 2: THE GATE OF BONES
Andy Clark
Book 3: THE WOLFTIME
Gav Thorpe
Book 4: THRONE OF LIGHT
Guy Haley
INDOMITUS
Gav Thorpe
• DARK IMPERIUM •
Guy Haley
Book 1: DARK IMPERIUM
Book 2: PLAGUE WAR
Book 3: GODBLIGHT
BELISARIUS CAWL: THE GREAT WORK
Guy Haley
SIGISMUND: THE ETERNAL CRUSADER
John French
THE SUCCESSORS
An anthology by various authors
• WATCHERS OF THE THRONE •
Chris Wraight
Book 1: THE EMPEROR’S LEGION
Book 2: THE REGENT’S SHADOW
RITES OF PASSAGE
Mike Brooks
• VAULTS OF TERRA •
Chris Wraight
Book 1: THE CARRION THRONE
Book 2: THE HOLLOW MOUNTAIN
Contents
Cover
Praise
Backlist
Warhammer 40,000
Throne of Light
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
Appendix: Notes on the Crusade
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Dark Imperium’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
It is the 41st millennium.
Ten thousand years have passed since the Primarch Horus turned to Chaos and betrayed his father, the Emperor of Mankind, plunging the galaxy into ruinous civil war.
For one hundred centuries the Imperium has endured xenos invasion, internal dissent, and the perfidious attentions of the dark gods of the warp. The Emperor sits immobile upon the Golden Throne of Terra, a psychic bastion against infernal powers. It is His will alone that lights the Astronomican, binding together the Imperium, yet not one word has He uttered in all that time. Without His guidance, mankind has strayed far from the path of enlightenment.
The bright ideals of the Age of Wonder have withered and died.
To be alive in this time is a terrible fate, where an existence of grinding servitude is the best that can be hoped for, and a quick death is seen as the kindest mercy.
As the Imperium continues its inevitable decline, Abaddon, last true son of the Primarch Horus, and now Warmaster in his stead, has reached the climax of a plan millennia in the making, tearing reality open across the width of the galaxy and unleashing forces unheard of. At last it seems, after centuries of valiant struggle, mankind’s doom is at hand.
Into this darkness a pale shaft of light penetrates. The Primarch Roboute Guilliman has been wakened from deathly slumber by alien sorcery and arcane science. Returning to Terra, he has resolved to set right this dire imbalance, to defeat Chaos once and for all, and to restart the Emperor’s grand plan for humanity.
But first, the Imperium must be saved. The galaxy is split in twain.
On one side, Imperium Sanctus, beleaguered but defiant. On the other, Imperium Nihilus, thought lost to the night. A mighty crusade has been called to take back the Imperium and restore its glory. All mankind stands ready for the greatest conflict of the age. Failure means extinction, and the path to victory leads only to war.
This is the era Indomitus.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
FLEET PRIMUS
Roboute Guilliman, The Imperial Regent, the Avenging Son, the Last Loyal Son, the Returned and Sainted Primarch
Sergeant Beryn Hetidor, 21st Catachan Light Infantry, seconded
torchbearer 308th expedition, angevin crusade relief
Racej Lucerne, Sergeant, Unnumbered Sons of Dorn
Avias, Techmarine, Unnumbered Sons of Dorn
Lycopaeus, Apothecary, Unnumbered Sons of Dorn
BLACK TEMPLARS, ANGEVIN CRUSADE
Beorhtnoth, Castellan
Alanus, Sword Brother
Mortian, Chaplain
Botho, Neophyte
Hengist, Neophyte
Alcuin, Warrior-serf
LOGOS HISTORICA VERITA
‘The Founding Four’
Fabian Guelphrain, Historitor Majoris
Solana of Mars, Historitor Majoris
Deven Mudire, Historitor Majoris
Theodore Viablo, Historitor Majoris
Yassilli Sulymanya, Historitor Elevate
Serisa Vallia, Historitor Designate
Guilin, Historitor
Resilisu, Archivist
FLEET TERTIUS, BATTLE GROUP IOLUS, SECOND ITERATION
Vitrian Messinius, Captain, 10th Company, White Consuls/lord lieutenant Fleet Tertius
Eloise Athagey, Commodore and groupmistress
Finnula Diomed, First lieutenant and shipmistress
Semain, Second lieutenant, first watch
Basu, Third lieutenant, first watch
Ashmar, Fourth lieutenant, first watch
Gonang, Seventh lieutenant, first watch, vox-master
FLEET TERTIUS, BATTLE GROUP IOLUS, UNNUMBERED SONS OF GUILLIMAN
Ferren Areios, Captain, First Company, First Battalion, First Division
Vanus, Sergeant, First Company, First Battalion, First Division
Isupi, Techmarine, First Company, First Battalion, First Division
Covarn, Sergeant, First Company, First Battalion, First Division, 22nd Squad
Meketo, First Company, First Battalion, First Division, 22nd Squad
Sobelius, First Company, First Battalion, First Division, 22nd Squad
ADEPTUS ASTRA TELEPATHICA
Black Ships Fleet
Phyllia Torunda, Knight-Excubitor, Chamber Astra of the null maidens
Essene, Adept-Captain
Silensiori MacPherson, Navigator, House MacPherson
Srinagar Astropathic Relay
Rumagoi, First transliterator
Colus, Assistant transliterator
Yolosta Sov, Astropath Exultatia
Wesu Sveen, High-Telepathicus
INQUISITION, ORDO XENOS
Leonid Rostov, Inquisitor
Hayden Lacrante, Investigatus
Benidei Antoniato, Interrogator
Cheelche, Xenos gunslinger
XVII TRAITOR LEGIONES ASTARTES, WORD BEARERS
Kor Phaeron, Dark Cardinal, Bearer of the Word, Lord of the First Host
Pridor Vrakon, Dark Apostle, Lord of the Third Host
Xhokol Hruvak, Captain, Master of Hounds
Tenebrus, Sorcerer, the Hand of Abaddon
Tharador Yheng, Sorceress, acolyte of Tenebrus
Chapter One
CHOZTECULPO
STOP, IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR
THE HAND OF ABADDON
‘It’s bloody freezing up here,’ said Cheelche. The alien’s words were harsh in Lacrante’s vox-bead, an extension of the cold wind burning his face. She was right. It was freez
Lacrante looked up at the tower jutting from the crag behind him. There, Cheelche waited, sighting down her rifle from somewhere in the geometric frontage. The stonework provided a mass of ledges overlooking the town. A sniper’s dream, if it weren’t for the weather. Wind hit the mountain and rushed upwards into town, hard as fists. It snapped through the narrow streets clinging to the rock with teeth of snow that bit at Lacrante’s exposed skin. He could stand only a few moments watching the saloon before he was forced into the shelter of the doorway opposite, where he’d steal a moment to recover, then go back out again, in case he was needed.
‘For the sake of my unlaid spawn, can this take any longer?’ Cheelche grumbled.
‘They’ll be out soon,’ said Lacrante quietly. ‘It was a good contact. A transaction, that’s all. Money for information. In and out, that’s what Antoniato said.’
‘Yeah, what do you know about it, new boy? It’s never that simple,’ she grumbled. ‘Freezing.’
‘I’ve been investigatus for two years now,’ said Lacrante. He got annoyed when Cheelche patronised him, and it happened often.
‘Investigatus? Still new,’ said Cheelche. ‘New and naive. This is going to go wrong, just you wait and see. It always bloody does.’
Antoniato would have calmed her. He had a way with Cheelche that Lacrante did not. His time on Rostov’s crew hadn’t taught Lacrante the knack of jollying the sour little xenos along. Sometimes, she got on his nerves, and that wasn’t just because he’d been brought up to find all alien life despicable.
Lacrante rubbed his face, leaned out of the doorway again and peered up the steep street. He saw no one. It was unlit, narrow, grim with refuse, little more than an alleyway made of steps. All the streets were like that. The buildings were squat, made of blocky stone to a severe xenos pattern, adapted by the monks who made Azazen their home. Light spilled in tightly defined stripes from slit windows, cutting the cobbled steps into neat sections of shadow divided by the shining performances of snowflakes. A little noise emanated from the taverna Lacrante watched, but each roar of laughter and stray phrase of music was shredded by the wind, and all sense of warmth it conveyed was snatched away.
He ducked back into the door, his skin needling. Steam gushed out with every breath, carrying off his precious body heat.
Chozteculpo was a nowhere town clinging to a nowhere mountain that clung to a nowhere planet. Though in the Segmentum Solar, Azazen had been off the main warp conduits for millennia, hard to get to, right on the edge of wilderness space. In Imperial terms it hardly mattered, and by virtue of its isolation had been untouched by galactic events.
Things were changing. The upheaval of the Rift had forced the warp routes deeper into virgin territory, enough to open up the frontier, and the monks found themselves living in uneasy coexistence with criminals and adventurers using the world as a layover before heading out into the uncharted sectors. Though the war seemed a long way from Chozteculpo, it had become a dangerous place, especially after dark, and few people were abroad.
Lacrante looked out again, shivered, clamped his teeth tight to stop them chattering. One of the local gangly xenos stumbled past, bundled up so heavily against the wind it could have been human, if it were not so tall and misproportioned. Its head was bent against the weather, the reek of drink coming off it strong as promethium fumes. That sort was common hereabouts; you’d not find aliens on a more important Imperial world. He had no idea what the species was called. Lacrante pulled himself back into the doorway, and the being paid him no heed as it stumbled by.
The minutes dragged. His joints ached.
‘Any sign yet?’ said Cheelche.
‘You can see from up there just as well as I,’ he grumbled. His fingers were numb.
‘My left eyeball’s frozen solid. I’m sure of it. I daren’t take it off the scope. It’ll come out.’
‘Take it up with Rostov,’ Lacrante said, and switched off his vox-link, sick of Cheelche’s moaning. ‘If he ever comes out of there,’ he muttered to himself.
The saloon was hot with many bodies crammed together. A fire of dried dung burned fiercely in the centre under a conical flue of moulded clay, the smoke sucked up so hard by the wind the chimney hooted.
Rostov was playing tarot. He looked steadily into the eyes of his opponent, hand of cards curved in his gloved fingers. The man stared back, face studiously blank. Geometric tattoos in black covered the man’s face, and his hair was greased into two horns dyed green. He was dirty, skin patterned with ground-in dirt between the tattoos. The lines in his face suggested a tendency to shout and scowl. He was scum, probably a murderer, certainly a thief. Weapons were prominent on a leather vest so stiff with filth it sat up on his fat gut as he hunched over his cards. He was the sort of man it pays to be wary of, but Inquisitor Rostov did not think him so dangerous.
Rostov glanced at the cards. Playing with the tarot was a mildly blasphemous use of the Emperor’s oracle, and forbidden in most civilised places, but though Rostov found it distasteful he knew the game well enough. He had a good hand. He took a stack of gold coins, and let them drop one after another onto the stake between them.
‘Confident,’ said the man. He grinned, showing filed teeth full of decay.
Rostov let the last coin fall. It slithered down the pile. ‘Maybe I have reason to be, Ser Tapind.’
Tapind’s grin widened further and he theatrically looked away, pointing his nose into the air. ‘Ser, is it? Nice manners. We don’t have much call for those out here.’
‘Do not take my politeness for weakness,’ said Rostov. ‘Perhaps you could tell me what I came here to learn, and I will make it worth your while.’
Tapind hunched lower. ‘Not yet. I like to play. Finish the game, and I will tell you what you want.’
‘I don’t understand why we can’t just pay you,’ said the Imperial Guard veteran accompanying Rostov. He was not young, but yet not old. No grey in his brown hair, though his face carried a network of fine lines. He was well muscled. When he moved, the patched uniform he wore under his heavy fur coat strained. Behind his chair a plasma gun was propped against the wall. A heavy gun with a tendency to catastrophically overheat, it needed strength and nerve to wield.
‘Because I like to play,’ said Tapind, and gave him a dismissive look. ‘You can learn a lot about a man’s character by the way he lays a tarot hand, and I can read you, sonny. You look like a deserter, and this fellow, your boss… I ain’t never seen skin so red like that. He’s got a touch of the xenos on him, this one.’
To the people in the bar, Rostov did look strange. His hair and beard were fair, and that contrasted strikingly with the reddish cast of his skin. He looked like a man with sunburn, in a town where the sun rarely shone.
‘I fit well within the accepted categories of sanctioned human form,’ said Rostov. ‘The organisation I represent would not have it any other way.’
‘Is that so? I don’t sell information to just anybody. Gotta be careful. Game’s a good way of gauging what kind of man you are, so – play.’
Rostov shrugged. ‘As you wish, but I assure you, we will learn what we came to learn.’ He looked to his companion. ‘Take your turn, Antoniato.’
Unlike Rostov and Tapind, Antoniato had no skill in hiding his thoughts. He jingled his coins in his hand, hesitating before laying his stake. He drew another card from the deck. He frowned and dithered over which to put into play, biting at the stubbled skin beneath his lip. His fingers hovered over one card, then another, before he finally settled on a third, plucking it from the fan clenched in his fingers and laying it on the table with a soft curse.
‘The blind seer,’ said Tapind, cocking his eyebrow. ‘Interesting choice.’ By that he meant bad, and he made sure Antoniato knew it with another black-toothed grin.
‘I’m no good at this, alright?’ said Antoniato.
‘I noticed.’ Tapind took his turn quickly, his move already formulated. He put down a large bet. ‘Are you going to match me or not?’ He spoke only to Rostov, Antoniato already discounted.
‘How the Throne should I know?’ Antoniato grumbled.
Rostov stared at Tapind. ‘I’ll invoke my pass, see what you’ve got.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Tapind. He laid down his card, a golden-armed warrior brandishing a burning sword. Everyone in the faith knew that image. ‘Emperor Among Us. Ain’t no higher spread than that,’ Tapind said, as he completed the layout on the table. ‘I win. Nice to meet you, boys. Now pay up, and get out. I ain’t selling no words today. I don’t like the look of you. Cards don’t lie.’
