Shroud of Night Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Warhammer 40,000

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part II

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part III

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  A Black Library Publication

  Warhammer 40,000

  It is the 41st millennium. 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 will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

  Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

  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. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

  Prologue

  The warp churned. It raged and roiled.

  Storms of wrath tore through tattered veils of fate and falsehood, splitting the skin of reality. Ethereal abominations howled their hunger to the void, twining their kaleidoscopic tendrils between the stars. Real space met the immaterium along interstitial fault lines, convulsing with a violence that shattered time and set reason ablaze from one end of the galaxy to the other.

  Somewhere amidst the madness hung a world. Above it, in orbit, a fleet. The spacecraft were ornate, buttressed gothic monsters whose hulls flowed and twisted in shapes both elegant and hideous. One amongst them was larger than the rest, a grotesquery of burnished gold and fleshy purple. Upon its flanks the battleship bore the taloned wing of the Emperor’s Children. Below the emblem was a name.

  Herald of Pain.

  On the warship’s twisted bridge, its master of auguries knelt in supplication before his lord. He had been borne from the chamber of silvered mirrors upon an ornate walking-carriage, but though slaves and champions alike had cleared his path with their eyes downcast, still he felt only fear. One amongst the coven of scryer surgeons had had to convey news of the battle upon the planet below. That unpleasant duty had fallen to him.

  ‘The auguries in flesh were clear, my lord. We saw through the lens of the screaming veil all that transpired below. They are all dead.’

  The master of auguries was a hunched creature, swathed in perfumed robes, bent double beneath the weight of the metal fetishes that pierced his flesh. Before the unwavering gaze of his masked and armoured lord, the lumpen creature cowered lower still.

  When he spoke, Lord Excrucias the Flawless’ voice slithered from the lips of his gilded mask in a silken whisper. Still it carried to the furthest corners of the cavernous bridge.

  ‘If our enemies are slain, then why do you grovel so? Was it an… untidy… victory?’ Excrucias’ thoughts turned to his golden flensing knives with a tingle of anticipation. They would have delightful work to do, if his servants had made a hash of his elegant battle plans.

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘Then what?’ hissed Excrucias. ‘Reticence is a flaw.’

  The master of auguries flinched. He gathered himself before replying.

  ‘My lord. Some of our enemies were slain. Not all. It is our warriors who lie dead.’

  Silence fell across the bridge of the Herald of Pain. Gold-armoured Chaos Space Marines stood statue-still, watching with avid excitement. Cultist crew and slave-mutants halted mid-sentence, leaving astrogation readings unfinished and vox exchanges hanging. Even the captives locked within dangling excruciation-cages turned their screams to whimpers. Only the distant rumble of the ship’s drives and the mindless binharic babble of servitors disturbed the quiet.

  ‘All of them…?’ asked Excrucias.

  ‘Yes, lord,’ replied the master of auguries. The creature abased itself before Excrucias’ living throne, veiled face pressed to the decking.

  ‘How?’

  ‘The enemy, lord. They had traps. Defences. They fought like daemons.’

  ‘Truly,’ whispered Excrucias. ‘You assured me that your scryer surgeons detected but thirty-one souls on that world. I despatched two hundred warriors to effect their sacrifice. There were Terminators amongst our ranks. The battle was to last seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds, no longer. Instead, it has been more than an hour since I gave the order to attack. And you say that these thirty-one enemies… slew them all?’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ whimpered the mutant.

  ‘How many of these mysterious foes did we kill in return?’ asked Excrucias.

  ‘We believe… perhaps half…’ The master of auguries’ voice was little more than a croak.

  ‘Fascinating…’ said Excrucias, running his tongue delicately along the serrated edge of his mask’s lips. His armour hummed as he rose from his squirming throne.

  Excrucias’ sorcerer, Phelkorian Twyst, detached himself from the shadow of the throne and lumbered in his wake. Phelkorian’s body was encased in a gem-encrusted suit of power armour, but the cowl of his rubberised cloak did little to hide the bloated mass of tentacles and fangs that was his face. Gasping wet, eager breaths, the sorcerer joined his master at the marble railing of Excrucias’ command dais. Before them, looming large in the bridge’s primary vid-screen, was the planet of Bloodforge.

  ‘It looks like a blinded eye,’ panted Phelkorian from his lamprey-like mouth. ‘As though our divine mistress slipped a needle into one of the Blood God’s vacant orbs.’

  Excrucias let slip a murmur of agreement, staring intently at the planet below. Two hundred, slain by just thirty-one. He should feel anger, he supposed. Instead, he was fascinated. Oh, his knives would taste blood, of course, pleasurable offerings cut from his living flesh and given to Slaanesh to atone for this failure. But still, an opportunity presented itself.

  ‘Prepare the teleportarium,’ ordered Excrucias.

  One of his attendant champions slammed a fist to his breastplate in salute.

  ‘I shall bear your orders, my lord,’ he barked eagerly. ‘I beg the honour of leading the next attack for myself and my Kakophanarii.’

  Excrucias gave a slight shake of his head.

  ‘No, Gaiuss. I go alone.’r />
  ‘My lord?’ said Phelkorian, tentacles squirming in agitation. ‘Is that advisable? Whoever they are, they cut down Lukian and his Writhe-kin like dogs. Not to mention that we are deep within the Eye. Teleportation has its risks. Prideful victory is an act of worship, but arrogance…’

  ‘…is a flaw,’ finished Excrucias. ‘I know. Prepare the teleportarium.’

  The slighted champion saluted once more and strode away. Excrucias placed one fleshmetal palm upon the pommel of his sword. He caressed the weapon’s hilt, and the entity within it crooned softly.

  ‘Ensure that the magi are ready to extract me at a moment’s notice, Phelkorian,’ he said.

  ‘Of course, my lord,’ replied the sorcerer. ‘And I shall gather my magicks, in case they are required,’ he added with relish.

  ‘As you will,’ murmured Excrucias, before gesturing to the master of auguries who still grovelled before his throne. ‘As for that, it is flawed. I’ve no further use for it.’

  The master of auguries let out a piteous wail and scrambled to his feet, but with a sorcerous gesture, Phelkorian froze him in place.

  Excrucias strode from the bridge, leaving his sorcerer leering delightedly over the weeping mutant.

  Excrucias’ senses sang as an empyric tempest raged around him. His consciousness expanded while reality wheeled dizzyingly. For a split second he felt the feather-light touch of questing tendrils and raking claws upon his flesh, his mind, his soul. Then, with an ear-splitting crack, he rematerialised upon the surface of Bloodforge. Kaleidoscopic lightning danced around the Chaos lord before flickering away into nothingness.

  Excrucias stood in a place of deep and profound silence, amidst the tumbledown ruins of what looked to have once been a mighty fortress. The sky above was the colour of cataracts, streaked by wisps of blood-hued cloud. A sallow breeze hissed fitfully through hollow archways and over crumbled ramparts, rattling grit against his armour plates. The quiet was sepulchral.

  Slowly and deliberately Excrucias took in his surroundings, leaving his weapons sheathed. He had teleported down close to his warriors’ initial drop coordinates, and had a clear view of the devastation they had triggered. Rubble and corpses were scattered on every side, littering an area cratered and blackened by the aftermath of multiple detonations. The bodies wore the purple and gold power armour of Emperor’s Children, or else the tattered remains of Slaaneshi cult robes and masks. Dozens had died here. Excrucias tasted traces of fisilite and magnitorian det-chems upon the air, along with burned blood and the dust of shrapnel-torn stone. His unnaturally sharp senses suggested that his warriors had teleported directly into the midst of a minefield constructed from short-fused demolisher shells. The size of the craters and the condition of the corpses reinforced his supposition.

  Through magic, or technology, or some other means, his enemies had known precisely where his warriors would deploy, and had managed to salvage the ordnance for their trap, in such a bleak and desolate place.

  Intriguing.

  Excrucias set off through the bolt-cratered ruins, following a trail of his warriors’ sprawled bodies. Some, he noted, had been riddled with shells or had their armour rent open by detonations. Others lay with neat holes punched through the eye-pieces of their helms where sniper rounds had found their mark. He tasted a hotchpotch of propellants and alchemical traces upon the air, some so strange that even he couldn’t place their origin.

  Cultists sprawled in bloody heaps, blade-slain or torn open like fleshy flowers. Sections of stonework and pillars were deformed and blown apart by sonic bombardment where his followers appeared to have fired wide of their marks.

  Whoever the enemy were, they had channelled his forces into killing zones in courtyards and alleyways. Booby traps had brought down high stone ramparts, crushing the faithful of Slaanesh. In one broad and lonely square, Excrucias found a deep pit, which had evidently been concealed in some fashion until the Terminators of the Writhe-kin strode across it.

  Their corpses lay at the bottom, half-dissolved by acidic ooze that still bubbled and popped as it ate away at ceramite and flesh.

  Excrucias moved cautiously, straining his keen senses for threats, but at the same time he felt his fascination and excitement grow. This enemy had picked apart his warriors with efficiency and invention. Yet still he didn’t see a single slain foe. Perhaps half, the master of auguries had claimed. Where, then, were the bodies? Here and there, Excrucias noted scuff marks and blood trails, tell-tale suggestions that power-armoured corpses had been hastily removed.

  ‘Your very secrecy gives you away,’ he murmured.

  ‘Not entirely,’ came a voice to Excrucias’ left.

  ‘No,’ came another from his right. ‘I’d say it kept us hidden just long enough. Wouldn’t you, brothers?’

  ‘Yes,’ came a third, rumbling voice to Excrucias’ rear. The Slaaneshi lord stopped dead, giving a slight sigh as multiple lock warnings chimed in his ear. Carefully he looked left and right, seeing bulky, armoured figures slipping from the shadows with their guns pointed at him. As they advanced, they swept aside the cameleoline cloaks that had concealed them, and Excrucias saw metallic blue armour that confirmed his suspicions.

  Alpha Legion.

  The warriors now flanking Excrucias were unhelmed, and their facial features were remarkably alike. Both possessed high, noble brows, strong jaws, shaved scalps and quick, sharp eyes. One had slit-like pupils of deep jade green, while the other’s armour was festooned with what appeared to be the salvaged tools from a Techmarine’s servo harness.

  The wargear of both warriors was worn and battered, their armour a patchwork of scavenged and repainted plates. Excrucias’ own armour shone by comparison. He was a god against these ragged ghosts. And yet they had confounded even his exceptional senses and surrounded him. It was an impressive display.

  He hissed as he felt the muzzle of some large firearm thump him none too gently in the back.

  ‘Don’t try anything clever,’ came that third voice from behind. ‘These aren’t the only guns trained on you.’

  ‘It’d be a shame to spoil all that pretty gold armour,’ said the one with the tools, disdainfully. ‘Except that ugly damn mask. You can keep that.’

  ‘Kassar wants to talk to you,’ said the Alpha Legionnaire with the snake’s eyes.

  ‘And who is… Kassar?’ asked Excrucias, earning himself another shove from the gun muzzle at his back.

  ‘He’s someone who wants to talk to you,’ said its owner. ‘As we said. So, move. Forward up that alley, and keep your hands where we can see them. You don’t want to try for your weapons. Really.’

  Despite his predicament, Excrucias was calm. He felt no indignation at being spoken to in such a fashion, regardless that no living thing had dared to do so in many long centuries. He felt only a growing certainty that his suspicions were correct.

  Excrucias was marched at gunpoint through the ruins to a partially collapsed mausoleum, and ushered through its tumbled entrance into a chamber lit by flickering lamps. Kassar awaited him, leant casually against an ancient tomb fashioned from some squamous black substance. His facial features echoed those of his brothers, save for a long, tight scar that ran up one cheek and over his right eye. A short-shaved mohawk clung to his scalp, but he bore no other distinguishing features of rank or seniority. Despite this, Excrucias sensed Kassar’s quiet authority at once. Here, without a doubt, was the leader of this strange warband.

  Excrucias’ guards motioned him to stand before their leader. The three of them, including the big brute whose heavy bolter had nudged Excrucias in the back, spread out and kept their weapons trained on him.

  Kassar was running a cloth along the black blade of an ornate sword, and as he set the weapon aside Excrucias’ eyes widened in recognition. The reaction was not lost on Kassar, who observed his guest with hooded eyes.

  ‘You know this s
word?’ he asked.

  ‘It… belonged to one of my most… accomplished champions,’ hissed Excrucias. ‘Sethriel. Several centuries ago.’

  Kassar gave a grunt of acknowledgement.

  ‘I remember him,’ he said. ‘I remember all the warriors I’ve killed, but he stands out. Good fighter, swift as air, gave me this scar. Possessed?’

  ‘Not Sethriel,’ said Excrucias softly. His eyes drifted to the blade.

  ‘You’re wondering why it hasn’t taken me the way it did him,’ said Kassar. ‘The thing bound into this blade.’

  ‘The Hexling,’ nodded Excrucias. ‘It is a… persuasive… entity.’

  ‘It tried,’ said Kassar. ‘It failed. Is that why you’re here? Sethriel and his sword?’

  ‘Sethriel and his warriors are the original reason I came to this place,’ replied Excrucias. He wondered how much he should divulge; how much they might already know. The Alpha Legion, it was said, had their ways.

  ‘Do you know the legend of Bloodforge?’ he asked instead.

  The Alpha Legionnaire with the tools snorted a laugh.

  ‘Know it, your golden grace? We’ve been living it for more than three hundred years.’

  Kassar glanced at his warrior, who shrugged.

  ‘We know it,’ said Kassar. ‘Two daemon princes, the Butcher and the Blade. One a World Eater, one a Night Lord. Their rivalry led them to create a world of eternal war, this world, upon which they could finally settle their score. Only their war ran out of control, fed upon itself. It drew the champions of the gods like flies to offal. The Butcher and the Blade drowned in the bloody flood they had created, and still the war raged on. An endless contest where the greatest servants of Chaos could prove their might, hone their skills. The Bloodforge.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Excrucias. ‘Such was the legend that reached me, many years ago. When I discovered that Bloodforge was real, I sent my Eternals to find it. Led by Sethriel, they were to battle here, to earn glory and reward from Slaanesh so that, when I returned, those that lived would be flawless, living weapons.’