James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

More Horus Heresy from the Black Library

HORUS RISING Dan Abnett

FALSE GODS Graham McNeill

GALAXY IN FLAMES Ben Counter

The Horus Heresy

James Swallow

The Flight

OF THE ElSENSTEIN

The heresy unfolds

With thanks to Lindsey Priestley, Marc Gascoigne,

Alan Merrett, Steve Horvath, John Cravato, Matt Farrer and

the GW Bromley crew, and especially to Dan, Graham and

Ben for lighting the way.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by

BL Publishing,

Games Workshop Ltd.,

Willow Road, Nottingham , NG7 2WS , UK .

10 98765432 1

Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.

First page illustration by Neil Roberts.

© Games Workshop Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 13: 978-1-84416-459-2 ISBN 10: 1-84416-459-4

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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 Earth have conquered

the galaxy in a Great Crusade – the myriad alien races have

been smashed by the Emperor's 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. Triumphs are raised on a million worlds to record the epic deeds of his most powerful and deadly warriors.

First and foremost amongst these are the primarchs,

superheroic beings who have led the Emperor's armies of

Space Marines in victory after victory. They are unstoppable

and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperor's genetic

experimentation. The Space Marines are the mightiest

human warriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of

besting a hundred normal men or more in combat.

Organised into vast armies of tens of thousands called Legions, the Space Marines and their primarch leaders conquer the galaxy in the name of the Emperor.

Chief amongst the primarchs is Horus, called the Glorious, the Brightest Star, favourite of the Emperor, and like a son unto him. He is the Warmaster, the commander-in-chief of the Emperor's military might, subjugator of a thousand, thousand worlds and conqueror of the galaxy. He is a warrior without peer, a diplomat supreme, and his ambition knows no bounds.

The stage has been set.

~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~

The Primarchs

Horus Warmaster and Commander of the Sons of Horus Legion

Rogal Dorn Primarch of the Imperial Fists

Mortarion Primarch of the Death Guard

The Death Guard

Nathaniel Garro Battle-Captain of the 7th Company

Ignatius Grulgor Commander of the 2nd Company

Calas Typhon First Captain

Ullis Temeter Captain of the 4th Company

Andus Hakur Veteran Sergeant, 7 th Company

Meric Voyen Apothecary, 7th Company

Tollen Sender 7th Company

Pyr Rahl 7th Company

Solun Decius 7th Company

Kaleb Arin Housecarl to Captain Garro

Other Space Marines

Saul tarvitz First Captain of the Emperor's Children

Iacton Qruze, 'the Half-heard' Captain, 3rd Company, Sons of Horus

Sigismund First Captain, Imperial Fists

Non-Astartes Imperials

Maloghurst 'the Twisted' Equerry to the Warmaster

Amendera Kendel Oblivion Knight, Storm Dagger Witchseeker Squad

Malcador The Sigillite, Regent of Terra

Kyril Sindermann Primary iterator

Mersadie Oliton Remembrancer, documentarist

Euphrati Keeler 'The New Saint'; remembrancer

Baryk Carya Shipmaster of the frigate Eisenstein

Racel Vought Executive officer of the frigate Eisenstein

Tirin Maas Vox officer of the frigate Eisenstein

PART ONE

THE BLINDED STAR

'If the sole trait these Astartes share in common with we mere mortal masses is their bond of brotherhood, then one must dare to ask the question – if that were lost to them, what would they become?'

- attributed to the remembrancer Ignace Karkasy

"We are the voice and the clarion call; We are tyrant's ruin and rival's fall.'

- from the battle mantra of the Dusk Raiders

'As with men so it is with silk; it is difficult to change their colours once they have been set!

- attributed to the ancient Terran warlord Mo Zi

ONE

Assembly

A Fine Sword

Death Lord

Inthe void, the vessels gathered. shifting gently in the silent darkness, the crenellated hulls and great ornate shapes appeared as a congregation of Gothic edifices, cathedral-wrought in their complexity, drift­ing as if torn from the surface of worlds and carved into warships. Great sculpted bows filigreed into arrow points turned, stately and lethal, to face into the dark on a uniform heading. Torches burned on some, in apparent defiance of the airless vacuum. Plasma fires trailed white-orange streams of turbulent gas from chimneys along the kilometres of gunmetal hulls. These beacons were lit only when conflict was in the moment. The flares of wasteful, daring heat they generated were signs to the enemy.

We bring the light of illumination to you.

The craft that rode at the head of the flotilla was cut from steel the shade of a stormy sky, with a prow sheathed in dark ocean green. It moved as a

slow dagger might in the hand of a patient killer, inescapable, inexorable. It bore little in the way of ornament. The ship's only decorations were martial in nature, etchings on the plough-blade bow in let­ters the height of a man, long lines of text that recalled an age of battles fought, worlds visited, opponents lain to wreckage. Her only adornments of any note were two-fold: a golden spread eagle with two heads across the face of the flying bridge and a great icon made of heavy nickel-iron ore, a single stone skull set inside a hollow steel ring in the shape of a star, at the very lip of the spiked blade, watchful and threatening.

More ships fell into line behind her, taking up a for­mation that mirrored the spear tip battle-patterns of the warriors that were her payload. In echo of the unbreakable resolve of those fighters, the warship proudly bore a name in High Gothic script across her iron hull: Endurance.

Behind her came more of her kind, ranging in class and size both larger and smaller: the Indomitable Will, Barbarus's Sting, Lord of Hyrus, Terminus Est, Undying, Spectre of Death and others.