Table of Contents

Cover

Chirurgeon – Nick Kyme

About the Author

Legal

eBook license

Chirurgeon

Nick Kyme

The air is cold and reeks of counterseptic. Very little light penetrates the dingy apothecarion, because I have set the lumens low to keep my subjects quiescent as I conduct my research. The gloom focuses what light I allow to permeate, and hones it surgically like a scalpel.

I have many blades, many drills and shears, hooks, saws and syringes. Each instrument is a vital tool in my surgeon’s arsenal. Every limb of the armature I carry is as essential as my actual physical appendages. Not only do my tools cut flesh, they explore truth. Secrets reside in the flesh, secrets I mean to excise and then study. Only here in this apothecarion can I become who I truly am.

Within these cloistered rooms, I am detached from emotion and do not see the corpses that end up on my slab as anything except bodies. Allies, adversaries, they are the same when rendered down to their constituent parts by blades and chemicals. I become the armature. Its cuts are my cuts; its vials and philtres are a constituent part of my own physiology. As I conduct my work, I am not the transhuman being my brothers have come to know me as, I am apart – I am the chirurgeon.

Several of my patients reach me as corpses. Broken bodies, even dead and inert ones, can yield knowledge though. Others carry injuries from which there is no recovery, or at least, if it suits my purpose, I ensure they make no recovery. Fewer still I can actually save, and this flesh matter interests me the least.

Apothecary is my vocation, but it is not my passion.

My interest lies in what comprises the essence of a subject, for within the genetic code of each is the means to unlock godhood or some power akin to it: creation and amalgamation, expressed in patchwork renditions of man, reaching for the apogee of scientific achievement, the quest for the universal panacea of life. Nothing less than perfection. I do not think of it as hubris, nor do I consider that I overreach. I know who I am and what I do.

I am Fabius, and I am a herald of evolution.

My most recent subject lies upon the medi-slab, alive but numbed from the neck down. The surgery I have planned is both invasive and extreme. I confess to a tremor of excitement at the prospect of it. A contagion riddles this bodily form lying beneath my chirurgeon’s blades, and I mean to find it and cut it out.

‘Begin audio log: A461/03:16.’

My voice is a dry-throated rasp as the analogue recorder begins to spool with dull half-clicks, and makes me realise how long it has been since I have spoken to another living soul.

That would be my father, when he was snared by his own game, enslaved… by what? Guilt? Perhaps.

I have left him with his brother, or the thing that looks very much like him, albeit with head now attached. It is diverting, but not fulfilling, and it does not answer the question which the body on my slab poses.

Is there a cure?

As yet, I have no answer and this vexes me. Left alone by Fulgrim, I can at least continue my research in relative peace.

The laboratorium is a separate annex from the apothecarion, one known only to me. It is a refuge for my mind as much as it is for my instruments and samples. Most precious are the amniotic caskets and the imperfect spawn within. I keep every failed experiment, knowing that I shall learn from the previous iteration and adapt. Every scrap of flesh has its uses. Nothing is ever wasted in striving for the perfect expression of mankind.

I lose time in this place, buried in research, obsessively experimenting. I know I have been down here for hours, possibly days already, but my preparation is exacting and comprehensive. I cannot stint, for this particular work is too important.

I begin cataloguing, as I always do.

Height, mass and any remarkable visual data are recorded. This is largely perfunctory and not crucial to my examination. It begins in earnest as I cut.

‘I am beginning with a Y-shaped incision first medial to lateral and then along the midsagittal plane, anterior, proximal to jugular and lower abdomen.’

The chirurgeon reacts instantly. As the other metal limbs loiter with arachnid poise above the subject’s gelid flesh, a single barbed appendage descends to make the first cut. It goes deep, all the way to the black carapace that resides beneath the epidermis and dermis, and buried within the subcutaneous tissue. The blade describes the Y-shaped incision as directed, drawing little blood. As the first arm reacts, two more descend, each terminating in a pair of forceps that gently peel back the skin and flesh to expose the interface.

A glossy black membrane is revealed, fitted with circular transfusion points and neural sensors.

Extraction is difficult but not impossible.

As a section of black carapace is removed, a pict-screen situated above the medi-slab relates further data concerning the blood-slick rib-plate beneath it.

‘Visual examination of blood toxicity suggests a worsening of condition since previous examination. Access record V460/04:18.’

A brief interlude of static obscures the image as the recording cogitator searches for the requested file. A muted image capture is relayed that confirms my initial analysis.

I blink-click further instructions and my chirurgeon’s limbs do the rest, inserting a cannula into the pale flesh of the subject’s shoulder to extract a sample for more detailed examination later. As the recording of the current procedure resumes, I see that the fluid excised into the glass receptacle of the cannula is thin and distorted by minute, waxy deposits.

The hot, metallic reek of blood wars with the odour of counterseptic and I reduce the temperature further to maintain optimal environmental conditions.

‘Addendum to cursory visual examination: ossified growths infect rib-plate, suggesting entire skeletal structure is at risk from bone deformation. Potential ossmodula corruption.’

The mutations are small but visible without the need of microscopic examination. I am reminded of hooks or tiny claws jutting from the ribs.

A bone saw burrs noisily. I catch sight of it descending in my peripheral vision, the light refracting from its rapidly turning blade. Monomolecular steel shaves transhuman bone mass easily, the slivers captured by a trough and deposited in a lozenge-shaped canister for later analysis.

‘Initiating invasive exploration into bone strata with single sagittal cut across sternum.’

I employ clamps to hold the envelope of skin in place, before using a sternal saw to shear the central rib bone in half. It takes several minutes. Transhuman bone mass is tough and thick. I watch silently and patiently until it is done. A rancid, burning smell assails my nostrils. Wisps of powdered bone drift through the shafts of stark light illuminating the medi-slab like dust motes.

‘Secondary medial to lateral, anterior cuts to release bone plate from housing in order to expose organs and begin more detailed biological analysis.’

I document with my eyes, and my voice.

After breaking through the sternum, the saw continues and starts to cut two perfectly identical squares of bone from the subject’s rib-plate. Unlike human autopsy or invasive surgery, a rib-spreader is of little to no use in the case of transhuman anatomy. The ossified carapace is too hard and unyielding. An aperture must be opened in the solid cage of bone that encases a legionary’s vulnerable organs. The entire bone plate itself must be severed from the ribs that arc around to the spine and lifted off like a grisly hatch. I am all too familiar with this procedure and conduct it almost without conscious thought.

This takes time, and, as the whine of razor-edged teeth sundering bone fades to white noise, I decide to return to a much earlier analysis I conducted when first accepting the symbolic helix of my order.

‘Halt recording. Access archive.’

I blink-click the appropriate file from a screed of data relayed on a second pict-screen.

A few seconds lapse as the cogitator finds and plays the requested audio log.

I recognise my voice, and sneer at the youth and ignorance of it.

‘Personal log. Fabius, III Legion, Apothecarion Cadre.

‘A terrible calamity has befallen us. We who, in our hubris, believed ourselves perfect have come undone by an imperfect system…’

The words spur my mind towards the past and are soon usurped by memory.

I cleansed the blade of my gladius on the scrap of cloak still hanging from my shoulder guards.

Another battle, another compliance. A society lies smashed beneath the booted heel of the Crusade. For Terra, for the Emperor and the promulgation of the Imperial Truth.

The bloodshed, the killing, faded slowly. Stalking through dust-choked ruins, ears ringing with the percussive bellow of bolters… Some of my kinsmen wanted nothing more than to relive this day over and over. I longed for something more.

‘A war well won, Fabius,’ uttered a familiar voice behind me.

I was standing on a ridge where a city once was, the shattered remains of a great statue of its potentate under my booted feet and serving as little more than a vantage point now.

From it, I saw tanks and the numerous geno-cohorts of the Imperial Army. I saw discipline masters shouting orders, but their words were swallowed up by the death throes of a city breaking apart.

‘Aye, Lycaeon. Perhaps.’

As I cast my eye over the aftermath, I saw smoke enough to blot out the midday suns and fire sufficient to burn a world. In essence, that was precisely what we had done.

‘So melancholic, brother,’ said Lycaeon, jovial as he rapped my arm with a gauntleted fist.

He saved my life today. Again. Few wielded a sword as well as my vassal brother.

I sheathed my gladius, as Lycaeon raised his, trying to catch a ray of sun against its gilded blade.

He managed it through a brief break in the smoke cloud, and basked, as he always did, in glory.

‘You would think a warrior’s mood would lighten at the apex of victory.’

He turned to face me, slipping sword back into scabbard, and I met his gaze.

Lycaeon was a seventh generation Loculus, descended from the old houses of Terra before they were forced into supplication. Like me, his eyes were violet and his hair was a golden yellow like the sun he had strived so hard to capture upon the plasteel of his sword.

As warriors of the III Legion, known by some as His heralds, we wore power armour emblazoned with the thunderbolt and rayed sun.

Unlike me, Lycaeon had a yearning for command and displayed all the traits of the militaristic aristocracy to which he traced his lineage.

‘My demeanour would improve if our numbers could be swelled. Ever since Proxima–’

Lycaeon hissed, turning aside so I saw him only in profile.

‘Be still, Fabius. Exult in triumph, as I do.’ He gestured out beyond the ruins to the battlefield below us, where the geno-cohorts still cheered. ‘As they do.’

Lesser mortals, military levies and Terran hosts of ‘men’ bayed and hollered in the artificial basin we had made with our preliminary bombardment. I did not have the heart to tell Lycaeon the reason there were so many was because our ranks had thinned egregiously since the Selenite plot. The cultists hated the Emperor and his warriors. They saw tyranny, not unity, in the assimilation of the techno-barbarian tribes of Old Earth.

‘Remember Proxima,’ said Lycaeon, puffing up his chest with pride at the memory of fighting alongside the Emperor. ‘Such glories… We shall see their like again, brother.’

‘I do not see the glory in this, Lycaeon. I see only further attrition.’

Lycaeon scowled. ‘You see Selenites at every turn. There are vaults on Terra that would see us renewed. By the Throne of Earth, we are proof of it.’

It was true. Several of the Legion were here only by dint of those reserves. Rapid implantation and deployment. It had felt hurried and desperate, though.

Lycaeon could clearly see I remained unconvinced. ‘Speak to Legion Master Thrallas,’ he said. ‘Have him reassure you as he has me. More will come. Our ranks will be restored.’

He saluted, his right fist striking the left pectoral of his armour.

‘I hope you are right,’ I said, returning his salute, before descending into the ruins to scavenge from the dead.

The teeth of the bone saw, shrieking hungrily, return me to my senses. As the whirring blade retreats, I am afforded a view of what lies beneath the subject’s rib-plate. Hearts, lungs, kidney, liver, intestine, stomach, all is relayed on the pict-screen. A mild arrhythmia in the primary heart is disconcerting, as is the faint distemper manifest in the lungs. As I commit my observations eidetically, the audio continues. By now, I cannot distinguish recording from the voices of memory and the two begin to blend together.

‘…perversely, our glory is diminished by the war and the Legion’s stark inability to weather attrition. In only a single solar year after Proxima, we have become an endangered species.

All efforts, including my own, to arrest the rapid entropy of the Legion have thus far been futile. My only meaningful deed is to continue compiling the lexicon of the infected. It is small consolation, and I confess that I now fear for the vaunted sons of Europa.’

I ended the recording at the same time as I saw a figure standing in silhouette at the entrance to my apothecarion.

It was a grand name for it. ‘Field tent’ would be more appropriate, but it was sufficient for my needs and, most importantly, allowed me to collect genetic material directly from the battlefield. I was a carrion crow, extracting what I needed from the dead. Precious gene-seed. For now, it was our only means of reinforcement.

‘Enter then, if you’re going to,’ I said, by way of invitation.

Lycaeon stepped into the glow of a sodium lamp hanging overhead. I was not surprised. It had been several months since we last saw one another, since my new posting.

He tapped the sodium lamp with the tip of his finger.

‘You need more sun, brother,’ he said, smiling in that way of his that suggested he was politely mocking you. ‘Sallow-faced, gaunt… Doesn’t suit you, Fabius.’

‘It entirely suits me, as I know you agree. Though, perhaps you should be the Apothecary,’ I muttered, returning to my research.

‘Brother…’ he said.

My eyes remained on my work.

‘Fabius!’

I looked up then, and saw the hurt in his eyes.

He had one hand on the pommel of his gladius, whilst he held his helmet in the crook of the opposite arm. My old comrade frowned. It would be the last time I ever felt regret.

Falling to silence for a moment, Lycaeon wandered around in the shadows as if trying to find something to fix his attention upon.

After a short while, I put down my files.

‘You need something?’

‘A little courtesy from an old friend.’ He gave the slight without looking at me.

I bowed my head, apologised and walked around my desk to embrace him.

‘I am a slave to my work, Lycaeon. I scarcely recognise my brothers anymore. They are names which I catalogue, bio-matter than must be processed. I confess, it has dehumanised me.’

Lycaeon clapped me on the shoulder, his smile warm but his eyes holding an unspoken question. He saw the corpses still regaled in their armour at the back of the tent and went over to them.

‘Were you able to extract their gene-seed?’

Even Lycaeon, the blind optimist, now showed concern about our plight.

‘Not intact,’ I answered, and joined him by the supine bodies. ‘Except for one.’

His mood lightened, I saw it in the glance he afforded me out of the corner of his eye, until I slowly shook my head.

‘The blight?’

‘The blight.’

This is why he had come. Lycaeon cared for our friendship, but he cared more for his continued existence.

Standing next to him, I saw how battered his armour was. I already knew how wearing the ongoing campaign had been for our Legion. Fewer and fewer warriors of the III were taking to the field in each subsequent engagement. As a result, the impact of every casualty sustained was magnified.

‘No one knows where it came from, nor how many of us are affected. Thus far, the majority of afflicted gene-seed comes from the immature reserve that had been held on Terra, but there have been other instances.’

Both he and I could have come from those reserve stocks, the tainted gene-seed. Records had been mysteriously lost.

Lycaeon’s voice came out little louder than a whisper.

‘What are its effects, Fabius?’

‘Degenerative. Some strain of the viral contagion has found its way into III Legion gene-stocks. There is no telling how pervasive it is.’

He gestured to the files on my desk.

‘A record of the infected?’

‘Yes. I am close to finding a way to test for it.’

His mood brightened again. ‘A cure?’

For the second time, I shook my head, and for the second time I felt the pain of disappointing my brother.

‘Not yet.’

‘But there is hope?’

‘Barring the miraculous, our Legion’s demise not only seems inexorable, it is also inevitable. Any other conclusion is unlikely, any hope remote at this point.’

The remembered words of my former self are hardly more encouraging than the sight of the deteriorated organs I now catalogue.

‘Several lesions and tumors are present throughout all major organs. Primary heart, secondary heart, multi-lung, oolitic kidney are all affected to varying degrees. Extracting samples for biopsy from each…’

A curette abrades a small matter sample from each organ, harvesting enough for later analysis, and, triggered by the continuing audio, I descend back into memory.

‘In an attempt to purge the Legion of the blight, as it has come to be known, all infected gene-seed is to be destroyed with immediate effect. This purging edict extends to all sworn brothers of the Legion who show any evidence of base level genetic malformation or taint.’

There were three subjects before me, all living, all denuded of their armour.

They were also shackled and guarded by armour-clad legionaries lurking at the tent mouth.

I already knew their fate, but had decided on the courtesy of telling them to their faces.

‘Gaius, Etiad, Vortexese,’ I said, my voice distorted by the rebreather. ‘You are impure. You have the blight.’

Etiad tried to rise, but swift gauntleted hands held him down. I closed my eyes as they were taken, my ears deaf to Etiad’s tirade.

‘I will need their bodies after you are finished with them,’ I said to the guards, inscribing each of the blighted’s names into the lexicon.

None answered me as they marched the condemned outside, but I knew I had been heard.

My instructions had been exact. No bolters, only blades. A mass-reactive pulps organs and shreds tissue. I needed their flesh intact if I was to fabricate a cure. A heart thrust, destroying the primary organ would suffice. Death was near-silent for these warriors, but on their knees like traitors.

The thought was an unpleasant one.

As keeper of the lexicon, I had effectively become an executioner. By scientific method, I determined whether or not a taint was present. I might not have wielded the gladius that had killed Gaius, Etiad and Vortexese, but I had effectively sanctioned their executions all the same.

I believed further study was necessary to understand the nature of the taint. As such, I sequestered several euthanised battle-brothers for testing and experimentation. I reasoned that if I could somehow unlock the gene-taint that brought about the blight, I might yet be able to reverse its effects. Of course, with the gene-stocks currently undergoing total purgation, any discovery at this point might be moot, but I was content to settle for a correct diagnosis and effective theoretical treatment.

The booted footfalls of the returning guards announce another intake of flesh-matter.

I did not look up as they brought the first of the bodies.

‘Leave it there,’ I said, gesturing to the empty slabs.

I only raised my eyes after the warriors had left. One hawked and spat as he did so. I ignored it.

I looked into the eyes of Etiad instead, but could find no compassion or guilt as his dead man’s glare. Instead, I set down my auto-quill and went to a bank of instruments secured in a rack by the bodies.

Cutters, saws, drills, I had an extensive array of tools at my disposal but it was a device of my own design that caught my eye.

An armature, it had four mechanical, multi-jointed limbs that extended from its power battery. I wore it like a carapace shell upon my back, the arms extended over my shoulders and slaved to auto-mnemonic responses much like my armour.

It was heavy, but tolerable against my transhuman frame. The burden was worth the effort, for my efficacy as a surgeon increased exponentially with its usage.

‘Let us see then,’ I uttered to the corpse of Etiad, the limbs clicking and chirruping as if sentient, ‘what lies under your flesh.’

I flit between past and present as the audio dredges memory but allows resurface between the conclusion of each session and the segue into the next.

For now, I am back aboard the ship’s apothecarion, a partially exposed system of organs awaiting my attention.

Delving deeper into the subject’s body, I extract sample material from the biscopea, haemastamen, larraman’s organ and preomnor. Minor growths and abnormalities are present in each. A tremor of consternation wrinkles my sweating brow. I had hoped for better results.

In the present circumstances, I cannot analyse omophagea, occulobe, lyman’s ear, sus-an membrane, catalepsean node, neuroglottis or betcher’s gland.

I am able to review the potential nexus of this taint, however, the fully matured progenoid embedded within the subject’s chest cavity.

It too bears signs of mutation, a slow degrading of tissue and form, one I am sadly all too familiar with. The audio log almost rolls over me now as I try to appreciate the magnitude of what is before me on the medi-slab.

This is not a fallen warrior that I minister to, it is a diseased one, a remnant that should have died centuries ago but endured through science and ingenuity. It is, by far, my most important subject.

‘Tissue samples from a random cross section of legionaries have revealed an end to the taint, though our numbers are so few as to be regarded as almost extinct. In order for genetic cataloging to be considered comprehensive, I have added my own samples to the data. Initial analysis is not reassuring. Further study is needed. If I am to maintain my research, I must obfuscate my personal results to avoid purgation.’

I remember well what I did, the bonds of brotherhood I broke on account of my desire and cold, analytical mind.

Lycaeon sat before me. He was stripped of his armour, his glare murderous. I was trying to ignore the bond I was about to break, my hand upon the lexicon where his name was already written.

‘What is your verdict then, brother?’ he asked, and I saw our friendship die in his eyes.

Soon it wouldn’t matter. In any case, friendship had become an outmoded concept when levied against the value of my research.

The chirurgeon clicked and whirred behind me. I seldom removed it anymore and increasingly sought ways in which I could bond more inextricably with the device.

‘Lycaeon,’ I said, ‘you are impure. You have–’

Lycaeon stood, giving me the old Legion salute. I did not return the gesture, recognising the scorn in it, but no longer the meaning or purpose. He then about-faced to his executioners without another word.

I watched him leave, a slight nerve tremor below my right eye, before returning to my research.

As an afterthought, I called to the departing guards.

‘I will need his body. Return it once you are done.’

The chirurgeon excises the last tissue samples for biopsy and my analysis is complete. Without needing to see the results, I estimate the prognosis to be bleak. Degeneration of biological matter in every organ. Projected life expectancy less than a solar year.

The arachnid limbs hover, awaiting further instruction.

I give it bitterly.

‘Stitch me up.’

Via a series of cables, I have linked the armature to my neural implants. It affords me total control, whilst remaining inured to the pain of the operation through strong anaesthetic.

That said, the surgery has been long and I can feel the smallest pinpricks of sensation flaring across my body.

Fortunately, the armature works quickly. I smell fusing bone and then the bio-adhesive used to reassemble my black carapace. Both will heal in time, or they would if I had any time left or if my regenerative capabilities were not compromised.

It takes several hours, and by the time it is done, I am clenching my teeth and near-screaming in agony.

‘All for naught,’ I rasp, rising to a sitting position.

As I swing my legs over the edge of the medi-slab, I hear the last few seconds of the audio log play to a conclusion.

‘The Crusade has brought us to Chemos and a reunion with our genetic forebear, Fulgrim. Within our primarch resides the means for renewed synthesis of III Legion gene-seed. On Chemos, there are hardy subjects worthy of implantation. Salvation now seems likely, but my own plight, whilst successfully hidden and at the stage of minor degeneration is, based on all empirical evidence, unlikely to be averted. I continue to–’

I shut it down, tiring of it and the memories the sound of my younger self unearthed.

Slipping down off the medi-slab, I feel the pain of my self-inflicted surgeries anew and grimace as I pad along the cold apothecarion floor to the mirror.

I use it for full length visual examination. The surface is a dull slab until activated, like a blank slate of grey wall. As I blink-click, it reflects my naked form back at me.

Heavy stitching crosshatches my skin, which is thin and sallow. My face looks worst, skeletal and drawn like the corpses I dissect. My eyes have become pinched, surrounded by chasms of dark skin. Weary, I lean hard against the mirror’s frame and run a trembling hand through my hair. A clump comes back, threaded around my fingers.

An elixir stands ready. It will restore a measure of my vitality, and keep my condition hidden from others.

‘Lycaeon,’ I utter to the darkness, ‘your sacrifice shall not be for nothing.’

No answer returns, save for the echo of my own enfeebled voice.

I have to find another way, I determine. I consider the plight of my father and the thing that shares his body.

Where science has failed, I must turn to the arcane for answers.

I reach for the elixir, a distilled concoction of restorative enzymes and proteins rendered from transhuman donors. Their deaths serve a purpose. My need is greater, my work more important.

As I inject the draught into my bloodstream, I revel in its sudden potency. Every nerve ending screams with dagger-edged pain, synapses ignite like solar flares in my brain. I stagger, the effects almost overwhelming. It soon subsides, leaving me vital, renewed. Cognition, physical strength, endurance, stamina and haptic acuity are all enhanced. It is a falsehood, though. A balm for an untreatable illness that will outstrip the measures of retardation I have employed.

Knowing the elixir will not last and soon not work at all, I decide that I must speak to the daemon. That will also mean confessing to my father. I will not do so like this, however.

‘My armour,’ I utter to the shadows.

A shuffling form responds, slow, yet still animate and dutiful.

A purple greave is proffered that matches the colour of the automaton’s eyes. My retainer is another secret from the Legion. His armour is older by comparison, the thunder bolt iconography worn and faded. A blade slit around the heart still lingers in the battleplate, a wound that cannot heal. The stitching around his neck and face is the mirror of my own. So too is his physiognomy.

His salutes, right fist striking left pectoral. It is awkward, but still dutiful.

I do not reciprocate.

‘Thank you, Lycaeon,’ I say to my vassal brother, feeling better already.

About the Author

Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Vulkan Lives, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio drama Censure. His novella ‘Feat of Iron’ was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. For the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, including Rebirth, the Space Marine Battles novel Damnos, and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Time of Legends novel The Great Betrayal for the War of Vengeance series. He lives and works in Nottingham, and has a rabbit.

The Iron Warriors fled Iydris through a warp anomaly at the heart of the Eye of Terror. It brought them in disarray to the Tallarn System, but what has become of their Navigators?

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Blades of the Traitor in 2015.
This eBook edition published in Great Britain in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

© Games Workshop Limited 2015. All rights reserved.

Black Library, the Black Library logo, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy logo, The Horus Heresy eye device, Space Marine Battles, the Space Marine Battles logo, Warhammer 40,000, the Warhammer 40,000 logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated brands, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer 40,000 universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2015, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-78251-922-5

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See the Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

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.