Renegades, p.1
Renegades, page 1
More Chaos Space Marines from Black Library
• AHRIMAN •
by John French
Book 1 – EXILE
Book 2 – SORCERER
Book 3 – UNCHANGED
• BLACK LEGION •
by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Book 1 – THE TALON OF HORUS
Book 2 – BLACK LEGION
HURON BLACKHEART: MASTER OF THE MAELSTROM
by Mike Brooks
NIGHT LORDS: THE OMNIBUS
by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
(Contains the novels Soul Hunter, Blood Reaver and Void Stalker)
KHRN: THE RED PATH
by Chris Dows
WORD BEARERS: THE OMNIBUS
by Anthony Reynolds
(Contains the novels Dark Apostle, Dark Disciple and Dark Creed)
STORM OF IRON
An Iron Warriors novel by Graham McNeill
SPACE MARINE BATTLES: THE SIEGE OF CASTELLAX
An Iron Warriors novel by C L Werner
Contents
Cover
Backlist
Warhammer 40,000
Renegades: Harrowmaster
Dramatis Personae
Part One
Catching Death’s Eye
Harrowmaster
Dance of the Long Guns
Biologis Diabolicus
The New Breed
New Faces, Old Faces
Radical
Allegiances
Council of Truth
The Hydra at Bay
Traps Within Traps
The Biter Bit
Aftermath
Part Two
Delta Primus
The Mailed Fist
The Enemy of my Enemy
The Rustbloods
White-Out
Taking Control
For the Good of All
Lies and Great Exaggerations
Part Three
Fool me Twice
Charge
Combat Drop
Death of the Dawnblade
Downreach
Hindsight
Legacy
Last Stand
Ghost Legion
Epilogue
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Avenging Son’
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 that 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 cruellest 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
SPACE MARINES
THE ALPHA LEGION
THE SERPENT’S TEETH
Drazus Jate – Lord and Harrowmaster
Solomon Akurra, ‘the Ghost’ – Lord
Qope Halver – Headhunter Prime
Vorlan Xhan – Headhunter
Zreko Chura – Headhunter
Unej Manoz – Headhunter
Dommik Renn – Headhunter
Krozier Va’kai – Captain of the Whisper
Derqan Tel – Legionnaire, Eighth Fang
Sakran Morv – Legionnaire, Eighth Fang
Forval Junai – Legionnaire, Eighth Fang
Pentaq Wray – Legionnaire, Eighth Fang
Trayvar Thrice-Burned – Squad leader, Eighth Fang
Kerrig Thrax – Squad leader, Ninth Fang
Titrik Inshu – Squad leader, Third Fang
Urzu Kaibor – Legionnaire, Third Fang
Attas – Harrower, Lernean Terminators
OTHERS
Roek Ghulclaw – Lord of the Guns of Freedom
Jarvul Glaine – Lord of the Shrouded Hand
Vyrun Evale – Lord of the Penitent Sons
Qorru Vayzia – Legionnaire, the Penitent Sons
‘Alpharius’ – various members of the Faceless
Keros Asid – Lord of the Sons of Venom
Raelin Amran – Lord of the First Strike
Dinal Bloodsinger – Apothecary of the First Strike
Alboc – Legionnaire of the First Strike
Xettus Qeele, ‘the Metalphage’ – Lord of the Rustbloods
SILVER TEMPLARS
Lampros Hekaton – Grand Oathkeeper
Renus Malfax – Second lieutenant, Fifth Company
Palamas – Captain, Fifth Company
Bedaris Hyrus – Sergeant
Kilus Jesar – Battle-brother
Vastus – Battle-brother
Rhan – Techmarine, Fifth Company
CRIMSON CONSULS
Tythus Yorr – Battle-brother, lifeward to Inquisitor Kayzen Hart
NEW MECHANICUM
Kazadin Yallamagasa, ‘Biologis Diabolicus’ – Heretek magos biologis
Diabolicus Secundus – Abominable intelligence
HUMANS
THE ALPHA LEGION
Tulava Dyne – Sorceress of the Serpent’s Teeth
General Andol – Commander of the Guns of Freedom
Tolly Krace – Alpha Legion factor
Vasila Manatu – Dishonour Guard
THE HOLY INQUISITION
Kayzen Hart – Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus (radical recongregationist)
Deema Varrin – Seneschal to Kayzen Hart
Nessa Karnis – Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus (puritan monodominant)
Evelyn – Assistant to Nessa Karnis
OTHERS
Jonn Brezik – Pendata trooper
Suran Teeler – Pendata trooper
Kanzad – Pendata trooper
Stevaz Tai – Pendata trooper
Cade – Pendata sergeant
Aemus Speltan – Beharis Delta space port security officer
Morton – Beharis Delta space port security officer
Pashvir – Beharis Delta space port shift supervisor
Raola – Beharis Delta space port logistics officer
CATCHING DEATH’S EYE
Jonn Brezik clutched his lasgun, muttered prayers under his breath, and hunkered further into the ditch in which he and seven others were crouching as the world shook around them. The weapon in his slightly trembling hands was an M35 M-Galaxy Short: solid, reliable and well maintained, with a fully charged clip, and a scrimshaw he had carved himself hanging off the barrel. He had another four ammo clips on his belt, along with the long, single-edged combat knife that had been his father’s. He was not wearing the old man’s flak vest – not a lot of point, given the state it had ended up in – and as enemy fire streaked overhead again, Jonn began to do the mental arithmetic of whether, right now, he would prefer to be in possession of a gun or functional body armour. The gun could kill the people shooting at him, that was for sure, but he would have to be accurate for that to work, and there didn’t seem to be any shortage of the bastards. On the other hand, even the best armour would give out eventually, if he lacked any way of dissuading the other side from shooting at him–
‘Brezik, you with us?’
Jonn jerked and blinked, then focused on the woman who had spoken. Suran Teeler, sixty years old at least, with a face that looked like a particularly hard rock had been hit repeatedly with another rock. She was staring at him with eyes like dark flint, and he forced himself to nod.
‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.’
‘You sure? Because you seem a bit distracted right now,’ Teeler said. ‘Which, given we’re in the middle of a bastard warzone, is something of a feat.’
‘I’ll be fine, sarge,’ Jonn replied. He closed his eyes for a moment, and sighed. ‘It’s just the dreams again. Feels like I haven’t slept properly for a month.’
‘You’ve been having them too?’ Kanzad asked. He was a big man with a beard like a bush. ‘The sky ripping open?’
Jonn looked over at him. He and Kanzad did not really get on – there was no enmity as such, no blood feud; they just rubbed each other the wrong way – but there was no mockery on the hairy face turned in his direction.
‘Yeah,’ he said slowly. ‘The sky ripping open. Well, not just our sky. All the skies. What does that mean, if we’re both having the same dream?’
‘It means absolute jack-dung until we get out of here alive,’ Teeler snapped. ‘You want to compare dream notes after we’re done, that’s fine. Right now, I want your attention on the matter in hand! And Brezik?’
‘Yes, sarge?’ Jonn replied, clutching his lasgun a little tighter.
&nbs
‘Sorry, s– Sorry. Force of habit.’
A throaty drone grew in the air behind them, and Jonn looked up to see lights in the night sky, closing the distance at a tremendous speed. The drone grew into a whine, and then into a roar as the aircraft shot overhead: two Lightnings flanking an Avenger, all three heading further into the combat zone.
‘That’s the signal!’ Teeler yelled, scrambling to her feet with a swiftness that belied her years. ‘Go, go, go!’
Jonn leaped up and followed her, clambering out of the ditch and charging across the chewed-up ground beyond. He desperately tried to keep up some sort of speed without twisting an ankle in the great ruts and gouts torn into the earth by bombardments, and the repeated traversing of wheeled and tracked vehicles. He could see other groups just like his on either side, screaming their battle cries as they advanced on the enemy that were being savaged by aerial gunfire from their fighters. Jonn raised his voice to join in, adrenaline and fear squeezing his words until they came out as little more than a feral scream:
‘FOR THE EMPEROR!’
Streams of fire began spewing skywards as the enemy finally got their anti-aircraft batteries online. Jonn heard the thump-thump-thump of Hydra quad autocannons, and one of the fighters – a Lightning, he thought, although it was hard to tell at this distance, and in the dark – came apart in a flower of flame, and scattered itself over the defenders below.
‘Keep moving!’ Teeler yelled as one or two in their group slowed slightly. ‘We’ve got one shot at this!’
Jonn pressed on, despite the temptation to hang back and let others take the brunt of the enemy gunfire. Presenting the defenders with targets one at a time would only ensure they all died: this massed rush, so there were simply too many of them to kill in time, was the only way to close the distance and get into the enemy lines. Once there, the odds became far more even.
They passed through a line of metal posts, some no more than girders driven upright into the mud, and the fortifications ahead began to sparkle with ruby-red bolts of super-focused light. They had entered the kill-zone, the functional range of a lasgun, and the defenders now knew that their shots would not be wasted.
Kanzad jerked, then jerked again, then fell on his face. Jonn did not stop for him. He would not have stopped for anyone. Stopping meant dying. He charged onwards, his face contorted into a rictus of fear and hatred, daring the galaxy to come and take him.
The galaxy obliged.
The first las-bolt struck him in the right shoulder and burned straight through. It was a sharp pain, but a clean pain, and he staggered but kept moving. It was his trigger arm, and his lasgun was supported by a strap. So long as his left arm could aim the barrel and his right could pull the trigger, he was still in this fight.
The next shot hit him in the gut, puncturing the muscle wall of his stomach and doubling him over. He managed to retain his feet, just, but his momentum was gone. He began to curl up around the pain, and the stench of his own flash-cooked flesh. Eyes screwed up, face towards the ground, Jonn Brezik did not even see the last shot. It struck the top of his head, and killed him instantly.
‘Die, heretic!’ Stevaz Tai yelled, as his third las-bolt finally put the man down. He whooped, partly in excitement and partly in relief, but anxiety was still scrabbling at the back of his throat. Throne, there were just so many of them! Even as he shifted his aim and fired again, he thought he saw something off to the left, closing in fast on the Pendata Fourth’s defensive line. He blinked and squinted in that direction, but some of the great floodlights had been taken out by that accursed aerial attack, and the shapes refused to resolve for him.
‘Eyes front, trooper, and keep firing!’ Sergeant Cade ordered, suiting actions to words with his laspistol. It was more for show than anything else, Stevaz assumed, since the heretics were probably still out of pistol range, but it would only be a matter of seconds until that was no longer the case. And those seconds could be important.
‘Something to the left, sarge!’ he shouted, although he snapped off another shot as he spoke. ‘I didn’t get a good look, but whatever it was, it was moving fast!’
‘Was it in our sector?’ Cade demanded.
‘No, sarge!’
‘Then it’s Fifth Squad’s responsibility, or Seventh’s – not ours! We’ve got enemies enough in front of us,’ Cade snapped, and Stevaz could not argue with that. He jerked backwards as an enemy las-bolt struck the dirt in front of him, and wiped his eyes to clear them of the mud that had spattered across his face.
‘Full-auto!’ Cade bellowed. ‘Let ’em have it!’
Stevaz obediently flicked the selector on his lasgun and joined its voice to the whining chorus that sprang up along the trench. It would drain their power packs rapidly, but the sheer volume of fire should put paid to this latest assault before they needed to reload–
Something exploded off to his left, and it was all he could do not to whip around, lasrifle still blazing. It was immediately followed by screaming: high, desperate screams born not just of pain, but of utter terror.
‘Sarge?!’
‘Eyes front, trooper, or you’ll be the one screaming!’ Cade yelled, but there was a note of uncertainty in the sergeant’s voice as he fired at the onrushing cultists. ‘One problem at a time, or–’
Something large and dark flew into their midst from their left, and landed heavily on the trench floor. It clipped the back of Kanner’s leg and she tripped backwards, and her cycle of full-auto shots tracked along Dannick’s head and blew his skull to smithereens, then took Jusker in the shoulder. They both fell, and Cade roared in anger and frustration, and not a little fear, as his squad’s output reduced drastically. Someone moved to help Jusker. Someone else fell backwards as a lucky shot from the onrushing enemy found the gap between helmet and trench top. Stevaz could not help himself: he turned and looked down at what had caused all this commotion.
It was a headless body, bearing the insignia of Fifth Squad.
Fear paralysed him. What had broken into their lines? What had decapitated this trooper, and hurled their body so easily into Fourth Squad’s ranks? It couldn’t have been the explosion he heard: what explosion would take someone’s head off so neatly, but hurl their body this far?
Cade was shouting at him.
‘Tai, get your arse back on the–’
The sergeant never got the chance to finish his sentence, because something came screaming over the top of the trench, and landed on him. The buzzing whine of a chainsword filled the air, along with a mist of blood, and then Sergeant Cade was bisected. His murderer turned towards Stevaz as the rest of the heretics’ assault piled into the trench, rapidly overwhelming Fourth Squad.
Stevaz saw a snarl of fury on the face of a woman probably old enough to be his grandmother, and the light of bloodlust in her eyes. He raised his lasrifle, but her howling weapon batted it aside, and the rotating teeth tore it from his grip. He turned and ran, fumbling at his belt for the laspistol and combat knife that rested there, hoping he could at least outpace her until he had his secondary weapons drawn.
Too late, he realised he was running towards where Fifth Squad had been stationed.
He rounded a corner of the trench before he could stop himself, and collided with something enormous and very, very hard. He fell backwards into the mud, and looked up to see what he had run into.
Two glowing red eyes stared balefully down at him, and Stevaz nearly lost control of his bladder until he recognised them for what they were. The eye-
lenses of a Space Marine helmet! The promised help had arrived! The lords of war were here on Pendata!
Then, despite the darkness, he took in the colour of the armour plate. It was not silver, but blue-green, and the pauldron did not display a black blade flanked by lightning strikes on a yellow background, but a three-headed serpent. His heart shrivelled inside his chest, because he suddenly realised what he must have seen, moving so fast towards Fifth Squad’s lines.
‘You’re not Silver Templars,’ he managed shakily.
The helmet tilted slightly, as though curious.
‘No.’
A weapon with a muzzle as large as Stevaz’s head was raised, and the bolt-shell it discharged detonated so forcefully that his entire upper body disintegrated.
Derqan Tel turned away from the dead Pendata trooper, and followed the rest of his team into the culvert that ran back from the front lines. No more defenders were coming from that direction: the Legion’s human allies had breached the trenchlines now, and could be relied upon to make a mess of this first line of resistance.
