James Swallow: Nemesis

Annotation

The Horus Heresy

NEMESIS

Warwithin the shadows

Horus Heresy – 13

James Swallow

(An Undead Scan v1.0)

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For Aaron & Katie—Clear Skies and Good Hunting.

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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.

As the flames of war spread through the Imperium, mankind’s champions will all

be put to the ultimate test.

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Execution Force

Eristede Kell — Assassin-at-Marque, Clade Vindicare

Jenniker Soalm — Secluse, Clade Venenum

“The Garantine” — Nihilator, Clade Eversor

Fon Tariel — Infocyte, Clade Vanus

Koyne — Shade, Clade Callidus

Iota — Protiphage, Clade Culexus

Officio Assassinorum

Master of Assassins — A High Lord of Terra

Sire Vindicare — Master and Director Primus, Clade Vindicare

Siress Venenum — Mistress and Director Primus, Clade Venenum

Sire Eversor — Master and Director Primus, Clade Eversor

Sire Vanus — Master and Director Primus, Clade Vanus

Siress Callidus — Mistress and Director Primus, Clade Callidus

Sire Culexus — Master and Director Primus, Clade Culexus

Legio Custodes

Constantin Valdor — Captain-General and Chief Custodian

The Imperial Fists Legion

Rogal Dorn — Primarch of the Imperial Fists

Efried — Third Captain

The Sons of Horus

Horus Lupercal — Primarch of the Sons of Horus

Maloghurst — Equerry to the Primarch

Luc Sedirae — Captain of the 13th Company

Devram Korda — Veteran Sergeant, 13th Company

The Word Bearers Legion

Erebus — First Chaplain of the Word Bearers

Imperial Personae

Malcador — The Sigillite Regent of Terra

Yosef Sabrat — Reeve of Iesta Veracrux

Daig Segan — Reeve of Iesta Veracrux

Berts Laimner — Reeve Warden of Iesta Veracrux

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Rata Telemach — High-Reeve of Iesta Veracrux

Erno Sigg — Citizen of the Imperium

Merriksun Eurotas — The Void Baron of Narvaji, Agentia Nuntius (Taebian Sector)

Hyssos — Security Operative, Eurotas Trade Consortium

Perrig — Indentured Psyker, Eurotas Trade Consortium

Capra — Citizen of Dagonet

Terrik Grohl — Citizen of Dagonet

Liya Beye — Citizen of Dagonet

Lady Astrid Sinope — Citizen of Dagonet

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“For those that defy the Imperium, only the Emperor can judge your crimes.

Only in death can you receive the Emperor’s judgement!”

—maxim of the Officio Assassinorum

“The monster boasted of what he would do once he conquered the home of the godking,

little knowing that Nemesis heard his words and took note of them.”

—excerpted from texts of the ancient Terran poet Nonnus

“We live in peace and pretend at it. But in truth there are always wars, thundering

unseen around us, just beyond the curve of our sight. The greatest foolishness is that

no man wishes to know the truth. He is happy to live his life as silent guns cut the sky

above his head!”

—attributed to the remembrancer Ignace Karkasy

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PART ONE

EXECUTION

ONE

Object Lesson

Tactics of Deceit

The Star

Gyges Prime was a murdered world, dead now, all but an ashen ember. Around the

encampment, porous black rock ranged away under a cowl of low mist, the haze

itself the remains of cities pounded into radioactive dust by countless bombardments

from orbit. Arsenals of nuclear munitions had been emptied to bring the planet to the

executioner’s block, and now the cooling corpse of the world lay swaddled in its own

death-shroud, a virulent and silent pall of radiation that smothered everything.

Here, in the canyon where the invaders had made their planetfall, high walls of

shield rock did their best to cut the fiery winds from the shattered landscape. Men,

such as the soldiers that had crisped and burned like paper in the onslaught, would

have died for the sake of living an hour outside in this nightmare, had any of them

survived this long. The invaders had no such weaknesses, however.

The lethality they laid over Gyges Prime was to them a minor irritant. Once they

were done in this place, they would return to their warcraft high above and clean the

stink of the dead planet from their robes and armour as one might wash dried mud

from a soiled boot. They would do this and think nothing of it. They would not stop

to consider that the air now passing into their lungs was laced with the particulate

remains of every man, woman and child that had called Gyges Prime home.

The planet was dead, and it had served a purpose in dying. The dozen other

colony worlds of the Gyges system, each of them more valuable, more populous than

this one, they would look through their mnemoniscopes and watch this ember cool

and fade. Why choose to attack that world and no other? The question they first