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Misbegotten – Dan Abnett

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MISBEGOTTEN

Dan Abnett

'Every man casts a shadow, not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit.'

- Emerson, M2

Years later, long after the Triumph of Ullanor, and the great bloodshed of the Heresy, and the darkness of the Fall that ended it, men forgot the hope they had once shared.

It had been a fine thing, a spirit that had invested and fortified every soul, human and post-human alike as they stepped out from Terra upon the undertaking of reunion. They were torch-bearers, every one of them, carrying hope like a pure flame to illuminate the worlds and stars that had become lost from view in the long shadows of Old Night.

History knows this time as the Great Crusade, but the name was not favoured by the men who led it. The Emperor, who is now a watchful god, spoke to his sons on many occasions, affirming his desire that a better name be found. The word 'crusade' implied vengeance and cleansing, a scouring of worlds and a ruthless doom to all enemies. 'There may be no enemies at all,' Horus Lupercal had said. 'Distance and strife have walled the galaxy from us, and the old high routes and shiftways have fallen to disuse and are choked with unstirred dust. We have not passed that way in centuries. We have not been able. True, we bear our arms and strap our harness-plate upon us, ready to deal soundly with enemies arising. But we should not expect them, nor treat all we meet with that potential.'

Wars happened, and deeds of violent compliance driven by necessity. Those are the actions history remembers from that age. But for every world or culture that resisted, or denied the offer of friendship, for every xenos race that baulked and drew arms at the approach of mankind, a hundred worlds rejoiced and hymned their relief to see the expeditionary fleets take high anchor in their skies. The Great Crusade, so called by those who came later, was for the most part bloodless. Though the expeditionary fleets raced out from Terra like the fragments of a nail bomb, they voyaged not to destroy but to locate the lost and scattered branches of the human species, to rebuild and re-light a galactic culture that Strife and Old Night had, together, put asunder.

Men forget that now. They forget the hope that had carried them forward. The wound of the Heresy War acts as monstrous punctuation in the texts of history, making it impossible to recall or even believe the spirit of optimism that had prevailed in the years prior.

Two days before his death, Horus Lupercal is said to have cried out that all hope was gone.

He was not foreseeing the murder that would end the civil war. Those close to him, though there were only a few left by then, believed he was lamenting the age before Ullanor, before Davin, before Isstvan and Calth. The time of uplifted spirit, and a resolve that seemed unbreakable. A glorious and inspiring template for the future that came from dreams of noble majesty, not visions of heresy.

A future that had seemed possible, until it was suddenly not. A future worth dying for, and, certainly, worth living for.

Ullanor had been marked. The greenskin xenos, 'orks' in expedition parlance, had risen to be one of the foremost real enemies of the Reunion Project. There was no dealing with them. Their bestial nature brooked no compliance and no negotiation. Plans had been drawn, threats assessed, and Ullanor had been identified as the site where the xenos menace would be met and put down.

The expedition fleets were rearming for deployment. Time was precious. Fleet strategists proposed a window of eight months relative before Ullanor ceased to be a viable fight zone and the xenos campaign would be obliged to shift strategies to a new target world.

Lupercal's fleet, the 63rd, lingered in the heliopause of the Issinium System, awaiting the return of compliance missions to Kest's Sun and Velich Tarn. Though eager to make shift, Horus Lupercal would not leave fleet elements behind.

The 63rd had remained on station at the Issinium fringe for twenty months, and in that time had recorded six compliances, all peaceful. First Captain Abaddon had led missions to Kiskayde and Phocis, and obtained glad fealty from the cultures on both worlds. The Ordinators of Kiskayde, indeed, had furnished the expedition with auxiliaries to demonstrate their willingness to support the Imperial cause. Kiskaydin jump-troops in engraved chrome armour lodged in the troop decks of the flagship, drilling in preparation for the xenos compliance, and learning, wide-eyed, the histories of Terra that they had missed out on. Kiskayde was a human colony culture established during the Age of Technology's stellar exodus; though their accents and habits were strange, they had not forgotten their rites of birth and blood.

Captains Targost and Sedirae had brokered peace with the Fiefworlds at Orlustre. Captain Goshen had negotiated settlement with the wary and mistrustful Motherland of New Hearth, gently easing their concerns with gifts of high science and assurances of staged integration. Horus Lupercal had commended Lev Goshen for his adroit and sensitive diplomacy.

Lupercal himself had led an embassy to Issinium, and won the free compliance of High Concerns who governed the system. He had feasted with them for nine days, and shown no loss of enthusiasm as the performance of their oral history, which lasted for the entire feast, rolled on and ever on, sing-song.

Signals had come from Kest's Sun. Captains Loken and Qruze reported that the culture there was long dead. The signals that had drawn the fleet's attention had been found to be the automatic broadcasts of old telecommunication systems. Some viral plague, long defunct, had taken the ancient colonies during Old Night, and their beacons had been calling for help, pointlessly, for seven centuries. Loken and Qruze had spent a month searching the empty tomb cities for signs of life, or of stasis-held survivors. Now they were en route back to the fleet.

Seven cultures: six new friends and allies returning to the fold, and one lost. A fine result to show for twenty months' work, with no loss of life, though the Mournival quietly complained for lack of martial practice.

'Tell them it will come,' Horus told Maloghurst, his equerry. 'Ullanor awaits, and Ullanor will give them the test they seem to long for. But tell them too… they should not wish for it. That we can bring our kin together, and no blood spilled, is the way my father would prefer. We are sensible beings, so we have prepared ourselves for war better than any species in the sea of stars. But though we are well made for battle, we always must desire it least of all possible outcomes.'

Velich Tarn was, then, that least of all desired outcomes. Assessed first as an outpost, or a small, starveling survivor stronghold, it had proven non-compliant. Captain Sejanus, favoured of all Lupercal's commanders, had led the embassy there and met ferocious resistance from the outset. His reports back to the waiting fleet had been brief and matter-of-fact. The environment was poor, and the human enclave there well fortified and armed with what he categorised as 'bio-mechanoid' weapons. They had first ignored and then rejected Sejanus' requests for contact. All hope of compliance had foundered when the Velich Tarn enclave commenced open hostilities. Their population was small - scans revealed only four hundred people - but their mindset was smaller. Velich Tarn would not submit to Imperial authority or even Imperial contact. 'They are extreme xenophobes,' Sejanus had written in a communique, clearly with a heavy heart, 'and refuse to deal with us. Despite their small numbers, they are formidably weaponised. They are determined to resist, and if left alone, I fear they will grow into a significant threat to stability in this zone. With regret, my lord, I request your permission to illuminate them.'

Horus read this missive quietly. Maloghurst and the others present could see from his humour that he was disappointed, and that he empathised deeply with his friend Hastur Sejanus' reluctance. Too many pockets of human survival had reacted to expedition forces with hate and fear during the course of the Great Reunion, most often the smallest and most isolated. Illumination was a last resort.

Horus granted the request, and sent tidings of consolation and forbearance to Sejanus.

A week later, Sejanus requested that the rest of his Fourth Company strength join him.

His reports were now referring to the opposition as 'the biomechs' or the 'biomech obscenities', and rating resistance as 'severe'. He had identified their leader as a man named Fo, and suggested '…there is no dealing here, nor option for truce. Illumination must proceed to its most miserable extent, and this blight be erased.'

'I'm going to Sejanus,' Horus told Maloghurst.

'My lord,' Maloghurst chided softly. 'Hastur has it in hand, and is reinforced. Qruze and Loken are due back from Kest's sun in two days. We are ready to make shift to Ullanor.'

'My brave wolf Hastur struggles with this,' said Horus. 'It is a bloody business, the worst dealings we must contend with in this project. Worse than xenos-breed, for this is our own kind turned feral. I will support him. Oh, don't look at me like that, equerry. This is the last business we must undertake in this zone, and the only one that has proved bloody. I'll see it done away cleanly at Hastur's side. I'll not leave a mess here in this quadrant, nor leave one of my sons to bear the bitter burden alone.'

'If this is your wish, lord,' Maloghurst replied, for he knew when even his artfully twisted persuasion would not work.

'It is,' said Lupercal. 'Besides, I have been reading.'

'Reading, my lord?'

'Idly. From the old annals. I think I know who this Fo is.'

Even from orbit-descent, Velich Tarn did not look like a place any man would wish to stay for more than a day, let alone the millennia Fo's people were believed to have sheltered there.

Bone spires of rock rose like lines of fangs from miasmal lowlands and plutonic lakes that were toxic beyond any reason of local enviro-chemistry. Striated clouds raced across the skies, low and dense, thick with pollutants, driven by crosswinds of blast-zone force.

Illumination had gripped a corner of the landscape, the region of the main enclave. Uplands had been fractured by orbital weapons, and kilometres of rubble still glowed as the heat leaked out of it. The broken curtain hills lay under a vast pall of grey smoke that rose like the breath of a supervolcano hours from obliterating itself.

In the scorching twilight beneath the plume, the valley was alight with thousands of snapping, winking, flashing darts of weaponsfire as the entire Fourth Company of the Luna Wolves, along with mechanised support, maintained the grind to break Fo's enclave open.

Hastur Sejanus, his plate scored and dented, hurried up the dirt track to the landing zone. A Stormbird, its white hull grimed with atmospheric soot was just settling on the wide mesh pads beyond the lines of empty troop carriers and landing barges. Daggers of blue flame stabbed from its vector jets as it touched down. Sejanus felt the thump of its mass transmitted through the temporary mesh decking.

Sejanus was alone. There hadn't been time to pull men out of the fighting line to form an honour guard. Lupercal, with characteristically puckish glee, had chosen not to give the Fourth Company captain advance notice of his arrival.

Sejanus strode out across the pad, steam roiling around his feet, the landing masts winking in the yellow light. The Stormbird's landing jaws were opening. Horus was already on the ramp.

'My lord,' Sejanus began.

Horus, in full war-plate, stepped out and embraced his captain.

'Don't, Hastur,' he said.

'My lord?'

'I know you, old friend. First, an apology for the lack of due ceremony. Then, some demand for censure for taking so very long to crush this nest of vermin.'

'I admit, I had both prepared.'

'Forget them,' said Horus. 'Let's talk inside.'

They crossed to the nearest modular. Inside, air-scrubbers purged the atmosphere lock, and recycle pumps hosed them in decontam spray. They entered the main command module, uncoupling their war-helms.

'Let me have the room,' Sejanus commanded.

The officers present saluted and withdrew. They were alone in the low-ceilinged strategy station, unmanned cogitators streaming battlefield data onto their raised glass plates.

'You came to…?' Sejanus asked, letting the question trail.

'Offer support,' said Horus. He set down his helm, glanced around, and then smiled at the captain. 'Your reports are candid, but brief, Hastur. I can tell, more by what you don't say than what you do, that this place plagues you.'

Sejanus shrugged. His face was drawn. Horus had never seen Sejanus so freighted with stress.

'I have tried to be succinct,' he replied. 'This place is a bane. This enemy… inhuman. In the light of the glorious compliances lately achieved, I felt I should spare the bald horror of it. When this is done, it is a thing better forgotten.'

'The truth is what the truth is, Hastur. I'm not a sensitive soul that needs to be coddled. And even in our worst moments, we may learn things that we may benefit from in later evaluation. You've maintained a full battle record?'

'Of course. We could have reviewed it together at some later date. Lord, this war is all but won. My spearhead squads are just hours away from taking the enclave heart.'

'How many have you lost, Hastur?'

Sejanus paused.

'Sixteen men dead,' he said. 'Another thirty wounded to such extent that augmetic repair will be required. Usually limb loss. I am ashamed of these loss statistics.'

'Because you are a full company of the Imperium's finest Legion, and you face just four hundred souls?'

'Yes, lord.'

'Fo's people must be something indeed. That's an unprecedented proportional hit-rate.'

'It is,' said Sejanus, 'which is why I have kept it to myself for now. But Fo's people… are not people. Four hundred life signs is misleading. I believe there are less than thirty actual humans present on this world. Perhaps none at all. Our systems interpreted multiple and blended life readings and came up with a figure of four hundred. But each one could mean… a dozen… a thousand…'

'A dozen or a thousand what?'

Sejanus crossed to one of the primary cogitators, entered his code and pulled up pict-capture from the combat archives. Sliding with his fingertip, he began to lay the images out across the glass screen, as a man might spread paper pictures on a table.

'Wait, wait, what am I looking at?' asked Horus. 'What is this?'

He touched the screen. A yellow rune highlighted one image and enlarged it, bringing it to the fore. A blur, motion-stabilised. Steel teeth, like human incisors, arranged in a grinding circle like the head of a mining rock-drill. A snout of cream bone armour. Massive jaw-muscles exteriorised, reinforced with hydraulic baffles, sheathed in the folds of a throat that bellied like a serpent.

'Bio-mech,' replied Sejanus. 'Bio-mechanical constructs. Engineered to kill. Some as small as a man's hand, others larger than a drop-ship.'

'Engineered?'

'Gene-edited. Spliced, reworked from human stock.'

Horus pulled more images to the front and stared at them. Each one showed a new horror, as if he were flicking through a pict-book of a madman's nightmares.

'Everything you see is human,' said Sejanus.

'There's barely anything I recognise as remotely human,' said Horus quietly.

'Quite. But bio-scans are precise. Everything coming at us is genetically human. Woven from this colony's original human stock. Some combine the genes of more than one source individual. Multiple others are worked from a single origin gene-donor. All are reinforced and weaponised with cybernetics.'

'Hence the misleading life scans?'

Sejanus nodded. 'We're facing thousands of individual bio-mech hostiles. Potentially, over a hundred thousand. Every single one of them is capable of killing a fully armed legionary. But they are all derived from the same four hundred human originals.'

He looked at Horus. 'My wolves have given them names, lord. I have tried to discourage it. Cyberzerkers. Biome- cannibals. Misbegots. They are feral horrors. The least of them make the greenskins seem mild. The worst is… there is no sane reason for any of them.'

'Sane reason?'

'I mean, lord… in the sense of design. They're just like nightmares. Nightmares of flesh, made flesh. Some are so clumsy and grotesque they seem to serve no other purpose than to disgust.'

Sejanus summoned up more images. A pallid thing like a starfish, the limbs human arms, a beaked mouth at the centre. A thorned snake as thick as a tree trunk, formed from translucent intestine. Something made entirely of weeping eyes. Here, four thick, human legs bearing a sack that opened in a gaping orifice that was a mouth within a mouth within a mouth. Glistening things covered in blisters and horns. Pulsing things festooned with barbs. Things made of interlocked hands that cupped drooling mouths and glaring pupils. Things sheathed in fingernail horn, their exposed flanks stippled with coarse black hairs and open sores.

'These are the constructs Fo has made,' said Sejanus.

Horus glanced at him. 'In the Dark Age,' he said, 'before Old Night fell, there was a man called Fo. Basilio Fo. A bio-engineer. A self-proclaimed Worker of Obscenity. The data is very incomplete…'

'It would be,' remarked Sejanus. 'The Age of Technology ended five millennia past.'

Horus nodded. 'The creature called Fo mentioned in the annals was a monster even by the standards of that godless age. Hunted for his blasphemous work, he fled Terra during the stellar exodus. He was presumed lost, long dead.'

He looked at Sejanus. 'But given his gifts and skill-set, it may be he has survived. Endured is perhaps a better word. Sejanus, we may have found the hidden bastion of one of history's foulest creatures.'

The vox-system chimed. Sejanus turned and took the signal, listening carefully.

He looked back at Lupercal.

'Illumination complete,' he said. 'We have compliance. Daerec Terminator squad reports penetration of the enclave's main bunker and the capture of Fo. They're bringing him here. No other humans found. Not whole ones.'

Horus nodded, and clapped Sejanus on the arm.

'Your bleak efforts are rewarded, Hastur.'

Sejanus allowed himself a thin smile.

'I think it was you that turned the tide, lord. Word of your unexpected arrival quickly spread. The Fourth was inspired by your presence. They redoubled their efforts so as not to disappoint you.'

'A coincidence, I'm sure,' replied Horus. 'Since when did the Fourth ever slacken?'

'Perhaps,' said Sejanus. 'But you have an effect. The enemy must have learned of your arrival too, through vox intercept. Their heart was lost to learn a primarch was upon them. Just as our efforts renewed, Daerec reports the biomech misbegots lost a degree of frenzy. Their resistance broke, as if they were, at last, afraid of us.'

'They faltered just as I arrived?' asked Horus.

'As fast as word spread,' said Sejanus.

Horus paused. He picked up his war helm.

'Hastur?'

'My lord?'

'Get your weapon,' he growled. 'They were waiting for me.'

Sejanus began to reply, but his words were lost. The entire west side of the command module ripped out, and hell poured in at them.

The misbegot was the size of three landing ships. It had bored up through rock and soil beneath the Luna Wolves' forward base, breaching the crust of the world as easily as an ocean creature might rise up from the unlit depths and break the surface. Endless rows of grinding teeth had gnawed the ground away. Great loops and ridges of muscle had pulsed to heave the giant thing along its burrow.

It had no form, yet it had all forms. It was a vast bulk, a slab of flesh reinforced with a rib cage that would have made the frame of a generous dwelling hall. Yet it was also a writhing forest of limbs, of clawing hands, of amputee stumps that wedged and stabilised its weight. It was eyes, wide and weeping, clustered like egg sacks. It was mouths, some opening in its centre mass, some lunging forward on whip-spined necks, every gullet specialised and distinct. One to snap, one to bite, one to grind, one to sever, one to grasp and hold as others fed.

It had no symmetry whatsoever. It was a sample of organic nightmares and anatomical shocks fused in one flesh, resembling no creature, terrestrial or xenos.

Yet its one defining horror was that it, and every disparate part of it, was unmistakably human.

And it was fast. Despite its size, it groped and slithered like a charging grox. It demolished the module chamber, shredding reinforced fabric in a blizzard of splinters, rending cogitator stations into scatters of sparks and debris, ripping up deck plates and undermatting like paper.

Staggered backwards by the shockwave of its burst assault, Lupercal and Sejanus braced side by side, unslung their weapons and unleashed streams of bolter fire into this onrushing misbegot. Wounds stippled the face of it, exploding fibres of flesh and muscle, erupting clouds of blood drizzle. Each gaping injury would have been the kill-wound for any beast of comparable scale.

It did not flinch.

Even with the most curious xenos-form, there was always some defining sense of biology. A common-sense estimation of vital parts, of head or heart, or principal organs.

The misbegot's lack of symmetry made such determinations impossible.

'With me,' said Horus.

They fell back through a junction hall into the adjoining module, reloading as they ran. Alarms were already screeching, triggered by seismic tremblers, perimeter auspex and integrity monitors. The klaxons were drowned out by the grinding roar of the horror as it pulverised the modular compartments to get at them.

Ahead, Horus saw men rallying to meet the attack: the startled fleet officers who manned the forward base, army auxiliaries, tactical staff, and a few Luna Wolves charged with station defence.

'Legiones Astartes, at my side!' Horus yelled. 'The rest, fall back!'

Only the armoured would stand a chance. The rest would die in seconds. Some were already spluttering as the corrosive air of Valich Tarn flooded the compromised habitat.

Yet they hesitated, for it was Lupercal, death opening its door at his heels, and they had pledged their lives and come to the stars to stand at his side.

'I command it! Save yourselves now!' Horus cried.

They obeyed, reluctant. The Luna Wolves, six of them, made a line with Horus and the Fourth's captain. The misbegot bore down, half submerged in the ground, sliding through flooring and rock alike, humped spine visible, flinging deck plates aside in its wake. The walls perished. The gale entered. Eight bolters began to fire, spattering meat and swirling the air with blood-smoke.

It reached them, unstopped, unslowed. Some buried, forward part of it tore up through the decking and dragged a Luna Wolf down, churning tooth-drills shredding his legs and lower torso.

'My lord!' Sejanus howled.

The misbegot reared up, its titanic form supported by straining appendages and its gnarled trans-skeletal frame.

Horus stood his ground. His warblade gleamed in his armoured fist.

'Go back to hell,' he whispered.

'You slew it?' asked Fo.

Horus sat down facing him in the stark cell-block chamber. He was drenched in blood, and the chest and fore-guards of his plate were gouged and stripped back to bare metal. He made no answer at first. Blood dripped off him onto the deck. A trail of little blood pools led back to the hatch.

'It was reluctant to die,' said Horus. 'I dismantled your work until I found the one part it could not persist without.'

Fo nodded. He was small and bird-like, his forehead broad, his eyes bright. He perched rather than sat, hunched in his simple black robes.

'You were waiting for me,' said Horus.

Fo shrugged.

'I knew you would come one day, and when you did, I would not win. I resolved to make my stand count for something. If not defeat the enemy, then eliminate the greatest of its party. Its leader.'

'You knew I would come?' asked Horus.

Fo nodded.

'Mm-hmm. You or something like you. One day. Eventually. It's been a long time, but it was inevitable. Terra endures.'

'You left there a long time ago.'

'My art was not appreciated.'

'I have seen it first-hand. That does not surprise me. Abominations, Fo.'

'Abominations?' Fo smiled, and showed small and perfect teeth. 'I see tastes have not changed.'

He sat back.

'I have been monitoring your activity since you arrived in this zone twenty months ago,' he said. 'Through my listening stations and watch-networks, I have observed your dealings with local cultures. Your message. Your offer of embrace. I knew you would knock on my door before long.'

'And you were prepared,' said Horus. 'Afraid, for you thought we would judge you as poorly as the people of Terra once did.'

Fo frowned.

'No, you are mistaken,' he replied. 'You think I left Terra because I was driven out? Shunned? Demonised? No, no. All artists and innovators are misunderstood.'

'Then why?'

'Because I saw the start of his rise,' said Fo. 'Even then, early days, but I could see what he would become. Your father, I mean. I knew what future awaited a man who dreamed the dreams he did. Though it took decades or centuries or longer, I knew he would not be denied. I wanted no part of that. I wanted to be as far away as possible.'

'Why?' asked Horus.

'His dream is unthinkable, yet he has the power to make it real. I see he has begun to now. You… you have reached the stars.'

'Yes, bearing his message. His hope to—'

'Hope?' Fo shook his head sadly. 'Yes. Naturally, he would tell his children that. He always made things sound so optimistic. A glorious and endless future. But, of course, you wouldn't understand.'

'I don't,' said Horus, rising. 'You are a maker of abominations. A creator of the most obscene things I have ever beheld. I presume a mind as transgressive as yours would see only horror in the splendour of his ambition. And fear the justice he would mete upon you for your crimes against the human form.'

'Oh god, no!' cried Fo in surprise. He hesitated. 'Do they still speak of god on Terra? Do they still believe? I suppose not. They wouldn't have to now. Anyway, you're wrong. I don't fear his justice. You say I have made abominations? Look what he has made.'

'What do you mean?' asked Horus.

'I mean you. You and beings like you. You think I've made monsters? In my wildest deliriums I could not have designed monsters like you. I practise simple and ingenious arts of genetics and anatomy. I tinker and edit, to make puzzles and delights and curious wonders, things to make us think, and ponder the nature of our being and our place in the scheme of life.'

He looked up at Horus.

'I do not make things that will burn the galaxy down. I do not make things that will doom our species and lead it into an endless frenzy of war. You are the most abominable thing I have ever seen. Grotesque. Sickening. Misbegotten. I could not hope to kill you all, but to abort just one before it reached potential… well, that would have been some solace.'

Fo got up, and brushed down his clothes.

'I'd like to die now,' he said. 'I don't want to live in a cosmos where things like you are loose.'

'What will you do?' asked Hastur Sejanus.

'We'll purge this place. Let nothing of Fo's work remain. And quickly, Hastur. The fleet awaits.'

'Will you execute him as he asks?'

Horus shook his head.

'For his crimes against the species, I should, I suppose,' he replied. 'But I will place him on a ship and bring him to meet our father. Fo is mad, but I dearly wish he could glimpse the honest and whole truth once before his life ends.'

'You want his compliance?'

'His ideas are so wrong, Hastur. This is an enlightened age and we are the messengers of hope. A hope that our kind has lacked through all the ages past until this era. I want this man to know his error, and appreciate the truth. It's the least I can do for him.'

'You are too merciful,' said Sejanus.

'If that is my only flaw, I am glad of it,' said Horus. 'His notions unsettled me. How could any man misunderstand the glory of our enterprise so completely? How could any man fear the likes of me?'

Years later, long after the Triumph of Ullanor, and the great bloodshed of the Heresy, and the darkness of the Fall that ended it, men forgot the hope they had once shared.

On ancient Terra, in those final days of the Fall, Basilio Fo heard the thunder approaching through the stout walls of his oubliette cell in the depths of the Imperial Palace.

And, despite the madness that had by then consumed him, he knew he had been right, all along, not to submit to hope.

About the Author

Dan Abnett has written over fifty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt's Ghosts series, and the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books. He is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Horus Rising, Legion, The Unremembered Empire, Know No Fear and Prospero Burns, the last two of which were both New York Times bestsellers. He also scripted Macragge's Honour, the first Horus Heresy graphic novel, as well as numerous audio dramas and short stories set in the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer universes. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent

As the Indomitus Crusade draws to a close, Roboute Guilliman returns to Ultramar to face a new threat – the pestilential Death Guard!

A Black Library Publication

Published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Cover illustration by Veronica Anrathi.

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o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.