THE MASTER OF MANKIND
(War in the WebWay)
Aaron Dembski-Bowden
It is a time of legend.
The galaxy is in flames. The Emperor’s glorious vision for humanity is in ruins. His favoured son, Horus, has turned from his father’s light and embraced Chaos.
His armies, the mighty and redoubtable Space Marines, are locked in a brutal civil war. Once, these ultimate warriors fought side by side as brothers, protecting the galaxy and bringing mankind back into the Emperor’s light. Now they are divided.
Some remain loyal to the Emperor, whilst others have sided with the Warmaster. Pre-eminent amongst them, the leaders of their thousands-strong Legions are the primarchs. Magnificent, superhuman beings, they are the crowning achievement of the Emperor’s genetic science. Thrust into battle against one another, victory is uncertain for either side.
Worlds are burning. At Isstvan V, Horus dealt a vicious blow and three loyal Legions were all but destroyed. War was begun, a conflict that will engulf all mankind in fire. Treachery and betrayal have usurped honour and nobility. Assassins lurk in every shadow. Armies are gathering. All must choose a side or die.
Horus musters his armada, Terra itself the object of his wrath. Seated upon the Golden Throne, the Emperor waits for his wayward son to return. But his true enemy is Chaos, a primordial force that seeks to enslave mankind to its capricious whims.
The screams of the innocent, the pleas of the righteous resound to the cruel laughter of Dark Gods. Suffering and damnation await all should the Emperor fail and the war be lost.
The age of knowledge and enlightenment has ended. The Age of Darkness has begun.
~ Dramatis Personae ~
Hierarchs of the Imperium
The Emperor, The Master of Mankind
Malcador, The Sigillite, High Lord of Terra
Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, Praetorian of Terra
Magnus the Red, Primarch of the Thousand Sons, Lord of Prospero
Koja Zu, Minister of the Anuatan Steppes
The Legio Custodes, ‘The Ten Thousand’
Constantin Valdor, Captain-General
Sagittarus Malacque, Warrior of the Moritoi
Ra Endymion, Tribune of the Hykanatoi
Diocletian Coros, Prefect of the Hykanatoi
Zhanmadao Navenar, Prefect of the Tharanatoi
Hyaric Ostianus, Warrior of the Kataphraktoi
The Silent Sisterhood
Jenetia Krole, Commander of the Silent Sisterhood
Kaeria Casryn, Vigilator, Steel Foxes Cadre
Marei Yul, Vigilator, Fire Wyrms Cadre
Melpomanei, Proloquor of the Soulless Queen
Varonika Sulath, Mistress of the Black Fleet
The Martian Mechanicum
Zagreus Kane, Fabricator General-in-Exile of Sacred Mars
Trimejia Diadanei, Fabricator Locum
The Archimandrite, Executor Principus
Iosos, Archwright of the Ten Thousand
Arkhan Land, Technoarchaeologist
Sapien, Artificimian
Hieronyma, Magos Domina, Ordo Reductor
Alpha-Rho-25, Sicarii Protector
Nishome Alvarek, Legio Ignatum, princeps of the Scion of Vigilant Light
Enkir Morova, Legio Ignatum, princeps of the Black Sky
The Mongrel Court
Zephon of Baal, Warrior of the Crusader Host
Jaya D’Arcus, Baroness of House Vyridion, Warden of Highrock
Devram Sevik, Courtier, Scion of House Vyridion
Illara Latharac, Courtier, Scion of House Vyridion
Torolec, Sacristan Apex
Imperial Personae
Skoia, Ancestor-speaker
‘Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.’
Prologue
The Herald
‘Father.’
He whispered the word against the wailing sirens. Lightning arced in panicked flashes between overloading generators, killing men, women and other machines with impunity. His presence was a violation, a profane corruption of the most sacred ground, yet the burden of confusion paralysed him. Weakness flooded his flame-wreathed form as it never had before in his demigod’s lifespan.
The cavern before him was only a laboratory in the most poetic sense. He looked with flaming eyes upon the inside of a god’s mind, where a cityscape of machinery and snarled utopia of cables reflected the synapses and sections of a human brain. At the core was a throne of gold, once coldly serene, now spitting acetylene sparks bright enough to sear even eyes made of fire.
He felt the heat of pursuit behind him, the ripples of the warp’s billion predators spilling into the latticework of tunnels in his wrathful wake. They came in a laughing, howling horde, inexorable as any flood, inevitable as the rolling slide of lava.
And he knew, then, what he had done.
He had led them here. The only being powerful enough to breach the final barriers around the Imperial Dungeon had carved a path and paved a way for them. The warning he had come to give faded from his lips.
The sirens. The sirens howled on and on. Warriors of the Ten Thousand, clad in gold and ringing their king, shouted and fired skywards. Their incendiary rounds dissolved within his towering form, their rage coming to nothing. Even the Custodians didn’t know him. He knew each of them by name – there was Constantin Valdor, there was Ra Endymion, there was Amon Tauromachian – yet they levelled their spears at him and opened fire. Good men, men with philosophical souls and unbreakable loyalty, seeking to destroy him.
His father stood at the heart of the storm, looking up at him, looking up at the burning herald of humanity’s end. Every other soul in the chamber – the menials and workers and scientists not already aflame or fleeing the cascade of klaxons – stared up with their king. The fiery form was the last thing many of them saw, for its violent luminescence stole their sight forever after.