THE HORUS HERESY
Nick Kyme
PROMETHEAN SUN
Into the fires of war
original scan by Undead
edited by fractalnoise
v1.1 (2012.01)
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.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The Salamanders
VULKAN - Primarch
NUMEON - Captain, 1st Company and leader of the Pyre Guard
VARRUN - Pyre Guard
ATANARIUS - Pyre Guard
GANNE - Pyre Guard
LEODRAKK - Pyre Guard
SKATAR’VAR - Pyre Guard
IGATARON - Pyre Guard
HEKA’TAN - Captain, 14th Company
KAITAR - Battle-brother, 14th Company
LUMINOR - Apothecary, 14th Company
ANGVENON - Battle-brother, 14th Company
TU’VAR - Battle-brother, 14th Company
ORANOR - Battle-brother, 14th Company
BANNON - Sergeant, 14th Company
GRAVIUS - Captain, 5th Company
VENERABLE BROTHER ATTION - Dreadnought
The Death Guard
MORTARION - Primarch
The Iron Hands
FERRUS MANUS - Primarch
GABRIEL SANTAR - Captain, 1st Company
The 154th Expeditionary Fleet
GLAIVARZEL - Imagist and iterator
VERACE - Imagist
Imperial Army
888TH PHAERIAN - Army division, including cadre of overseers and discipline-masters
Of ancient Nocturne
N’BEL - Black-smiter of Hesiod
BREUGHAR - Metal-shaper of Hesiod
GORVE - Plainskeeper of Hesiod
REK’TAR - Hornmaster of Hesiod
BAN’EK - Tribal king of Themis
Other
“THE OUTLANDER”
“I don’t understand. You raised me. You taught me how to hunt with spear and bow. I lived in your house and worked in your forge.
Yet you ask me to believe that I am not your son?
So who is my father?”
—Vulkan of Nocturne
NO ONE SAW him die. The jungle just came alive and took him. Soundlessly, the trooper was simply gone. His slayer moved as a blur, blending with the shadows until it was lost in the heat haze. Scant light penetrated the dense leaf canopy above. Men, shouting and panicking in a tightly packed column, went for their lamp packs. It was stifling in the heady gloom. Heat thickened the air, but the troopers’ bodies cooled with growing fear. Stabbing light beams sent night-beetles scurrying for dark hollows. Vine serpents hung inert in mimicry of their namesakes in the hope of being overlooked. If only the men could play dead like that and the predator would pass… Flat leaves, that were not really leaves at all, heaved and pulsed but there was no sign of the monster. Cries of panic subsided, usurped by a quiet tension as the jungle swallowed voices and stole the soldiers’ resolve. The discipline-master of the 888th Phaerian Imperial Army held up a clenched fist.
Still. Stay still… and listen. If we listen, we will live.
His brocade and jacket seemed incongruous amongst his bare- and barrel-chested charges. Phaerian death-worlders were brutish, slab-muscled men used to deltas and trackless swamps. Skulls jangled on their bandoliers, the rictus mouths clacking as if in amusement. Camo tattoos striped their pugnacious faces but couldn’t hide their fear. This was supposed to be their element.
Hearts beating in two thousand chests made a louder clamour than the entire jungle in that moment. The forest held its breath.
Lifting his puniter-stave, the discipline-master was about to order the advance when the cyber-hawk perched on his shoulder shrilled. The warning was too late. As if exhaling again, the jungle opened its maw and the discipline-master disappeared. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Just like the trooper. They were being picked off.
Snap fire from a dozen rifles chased the hole left by the discipline-master but the trail was cold before the soldiers had time to realise they were aiming at nothing. Order went with him, Army overseers powerless to prevent the two thousand-strong infantry group from unleashing carnage with their auto-carbines and scatter-locks. Hot las and solid shot spat out in all directions as the men vented their fear until their mags ran dry. Sections of Rapier and Tarantula gunners added heavier firepower to the barrage. The thick jungle in the immediate vicinity became a mulched flatland in under a minute. Electro-goads and vox-amplified orders bellowed at ear-bleeding volume eventually brought the madness under control.
A dumb quietude fell, undercut by heavy breathing and nervous whispers.
The cessation was brief.
Out of the darkness came monsters. Vast beasts, their ululating cries louder than any augmented overseer, crashed into the column of men killing Phaerians by the score. On one flank, the line bent and broke as hulking, scaled things with horned snouts armoured by bony carapace drove into it. The first Phaerians to die were ground to paste, whilst those that came next were thrown into the air or gored to death. Other beasts, smaller but still many times larger than a man, bullied in alongside the hulks. Saurian like their larger cousins, but avian in nature and aspect, they cantered and sprang amongst the shattered platoons, rending with dewclaws. With their coherency so brutally broken, the scattered Phaerians were easy meat. Hooded riders snapped off shots with long and alien rifles, their conical helms gleaming pearlescent white.
From above, a shriek split the air and a second later the leaf canopy was broken by a flock of winged lizards. A lucky burst of rapier fire chewed up the membranous wings of one, sending rider and beast into a fatal dive, but the rest of its kindred reduced the jubilant Army gunners to a visceral mist.