Wild Rider - Gav Thorpe Read online

  Backlist

  More Warhammer 40,000 stories from Black Library

  • RISE OF THE YNNARI •

  by Gav Thorpe

  Book 1: GHOST WARRIOR

  Book 2: WILD RIDER

  • THE PHOENIX LORDS •

  JAIN ZAR: THE STORM OF SILENCE

  by Gav Thorpe

  ASURMEN: HAND OF ASURYAN

  by Gav Thorpe

  • PATH OF THE ELDAR •

  By Gav Thorpe

  Book 1: PATH OF THE WARRIOR

  Book 2: PATH OF THE SEER

  Book 3: PATH OF THE OUTCAST

  • PATH OF THE DARK ELDAR •

  By Andy Chambers

  Book 1: PATH OF THE RENEGADE

  Book 2: PATH OF THE INCUBUS

  Book 3: PATH OF THE ARCHON

  THE MASQUE OF VYLE

  A novella by Andy Chambers

  VALEDOR

  A novel by Guy Haley

  THE CARNAC CAMPAIGN

  A novella by Joe Parrino, Graeme Lyon & Rob Sanders

  FARSEER

  A novel by William King

  The Beast Arises

  1: I AM SLAUGHTER

  2: PREDATOR, PREY

  3: THE EMPEROR EXPECTS

  4: THE LAST WALL

  5: THRONEWORLD

  6: ECHOES OF THE LONG WAR

  7: THE HUNT FOR VULKAN

  8: THE BEAST MUST DIE

  9: WATCHERS IN DEATH

  10: THE LAST SON OF DORN

  11: SHADOW OF ULLANOR

  12: THE BEHEADING

  Space Marine Battles

  WAR OF THE FANG

  A Space Marine Battles book, containing the novella The Hunt for Magnus and the novel Battle of the Fang

  THE WORLD ENGINE

  An Astral Knights novel

  DAMNOS

  An Ultramarines collection

  DAMOCLES

  Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Ultramarines novellas Blood Oath, Broken Sword, Black Leviathan and Hunter’s Snare

  OVERFIEND

  Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Salamanders novellas Stormseer, Shadow Captain and Forge Master

  ARMAGEDDON

  Contains the Black Templars novel Helsreach and novella Blood and Fire

  Legends of the Dark Millennium

  ASTRA MILITARUM

  An Astra Militarum collection

  ULTRAMARINES

  An Ultramarines collection

  FARSIGHT

  A Tau Empire novella

  SONS OF CORAX

  A Raven Guard collection

  SPACE WOLVES

  A Space Wolves collection

  Visit blacklibrary.com for the full range of novels, novellas, audio dramas and Quick Reads, along with many other exclusive products

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  Warhammer 40,000

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Dark Imperium: Plague War’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that He may never truly die.

  Yet even in His deathless state, the Emperor continues His eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

  To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

  Prologue

  Imagine a vast ocean, uncontrollable, swept by storms, wracked with treacherous currents and inhabited by the deadliest predators. Populate this tempestuous sea with islands. Some of the islands are not fixed, but float above the waves, linked to its power but never touching the surface for fear of being swallowed. Each island is joined to others by long bridges, and the bridges themselves are adorned with castles and cities, some capable of housing millions of souls. It is ancient, the maze of bridges, its arches collapsing, its piles eaten away by the merciless aeons of its existence. In places it has been consumed by rising tides, in others it has fallen beneath the surface.

  Where these tumbled spans touch the waters, the predators learn to walk. Yet they are not air-breathers by nature, and their time out of the sea is limited. They cannot rove far from the breaches into their inimitable world, but they crave the light of the open air.

  Try to imagine the same, wrought not of matter but raw emotion. Now you have but the vaguest notion of the warp and the webway.

  Such visualisation exercises were unnecessary for Eldrad Ulthran, former farseer of Ulthwé Craftworld and self-appointed herald of Ynnead. He who had thought to raise up the aeldari God of the Dead knew the webway intimately. He looked upon it not only with mortal eyes, but with the full power of his psychic senses. Its wonder needed no metaphor.

  It was in this place, in the space between spaces, that he had first discovered Ynnead. Rather, it was here he had first sensed the potential God of the Dead. He alone had witnessed the nascent power of an ascending deity, felt the tremor of her heartbeat hidden in the pulse of the universe.

  Scattered across the stars, the craftworlds of the Asuryani had thought themselves isolated, each hoarding the souls of its dead within an infinity circuit. A closed loop, they had believed, and Eldrad had thought it also.

  Until he had heard that awe-inspiring throb of burgeoning godhood.

  At that moment he had realised that his people had been woefully short-sighted. To believe that the spirit-vaults of an infinity circuit were wholly closed
off from the warp had been to think only in mortal dimensions. It mattered not whether in the bodies of the aeldari, or in the crystal pathways of a craftworld, a spirit affected the warp in the same manner that matter could bend space. And the webway linked all of them together, like a network of cables running along the bridges, conducting energy from one side of the galaxy to the other.

  The Eternal Matrix, he had called it. It was part of the webway, the greatest achievement of the aeldari dominion; an interconnection between not only every populated world but, on a fundamental level, every single aeldari born.

  Before the Fall, when the aeldari had been consumed by the deity birthed out of their own decadence, their spirits had been gathered in the Eternal Matrix. A soul could return to a new life. Resurrection. Reincarnation. Rebirth. Eldrad was not sure of the exact mechanism, but he knew it should be possible again.

  Ynnead, God of the Dead, was the Eternal Matrix given mind and purpose.

  But let us return to the analogy and to the place where Eldrad stands upon a broken span, looking down into the waters where the sharks await. An island beneath the unforgiving waves is close, within reach, harbouring secrets of the past, present and future.

  To the eye of a mortal, the Falls of the Unshed Tears were suitably named, like a great cascade of flowing greenish-blue energy that poured from a breach in the webway’s barriers. It bisected a grand hall, as large as a city precinct, walled with smooth crystal veined with grey and black.

  Eldrad stood at the centre of the hall and examined the roaring cataract. It was not his body, but a projection of his spirit. It was therefore still young in appearance, clad in light robes of purple and grey, his staff like a rod of light in his hand. Waves of hair fell to his shoulders, held back by a band of gold with a tear-shaped ruby upon his brow. He moved without effort, almost floating with each step, carried by the power of the mind, not muscle.

  What he needed, the knowledge he sought, was beyond the ever-shifting veil. He had cast the runes three times, and each occasion had shown the path to the Falls of the Unshed Tears.

  Even as part of him marvelled at the physical beauty, his psychic mind probed the immaterial construction around him. It was the breach itself that was of value. Raw warp power knows nothing of causality. Here there was no boundary to what had been, what was and what might come to pass.

  His boots soft on the marble-like floor, the seer approached the falls. Shapes slithered within the spray, not yet aware of him. He lifted a vial from his belt, fashioned of crystal close in appearance to that of the walls. Soulglass it was called, similar to the wraithbone used by his people to carry psychic energy. Similar, but opposite, for soulglass was psychically repellent rather than conductive. Thought could not pass through it. It was a material that could shield against the warp or, in this case, be used to contain it.

  It froze his fingers. Like Eldrad, the phial was not real, but a reflection of its mortal counterpart. Which was good enough in this place.

  Arm extended, the seer was almost at the falls when he felt a gentle breeze upon his cheek.

  He stopped and turned, to find a door in the wall where there had been nothing but smooth crystal.

  In front of the door stood a young aeldari. Sort of. The image of an aeldari through a particular lens, perhaps. The newcomer was almost waspish in shape, so slender at the waist, neck long. Tresses of golden hair hung almost to the ground, braided into shapes that seemed to be figures entwined in ecstasy. A robe of silver was slit at shoulder and thigh, revealing pale pink skin. Eyes like polished sapphires regarded him from an oval face.

  It took a heartbeat before Eldrad noticed that the figure stood with arms crossed over a single-breasted chest and with hands clasped politely in the small of the back. The extra set of limbs immediately betrayed the identity of the interloper.

  He murmured the name, caught between cold terror and a grudging admiration for the greater daemon’s ability to arrive without him being forewarned.

  ‘N’kari.’

  ‘Eldrad.’

  The voice was like silk sliding across the soul, caressing yet strong. Just the utterance of the seer’s name seemed a lascivious invitation. The daemon grinned, revealing needle teeth.

  ‘Do you never tire of being banished?’ Eldrad slipped the vial back into its pouch and in its place conjured a simulacrum of a golden blade.

  ‘Do you ever tire of my return?’ the greater daemon replied, remaining motionless except for a coquettish tilt of the head.

  Eldrad risked a flick of the eyes towards the falls. They had not changed. If N’kari wanted to summon its daemonic minions from the flow, it had not yet done so.

  ‘Why are you here?’ the seer asked, stepping away from the warp power.

  ‘To invite you to look deeper,’ said the greater daemon. ‘Within, you will find all that you desire.’

  ‘And you think that is a temptation that will entrap me?’

  The daemon shrugged, which was quite expressive with four arms.

  ‘My kind are called the Keepers of Secrets for a reason.’ N’kari waved two hands at the mystical cascade. ‘You have my word that I will not interfere.’

  ‘As though the word of a daemon should count for anything.’

  N’kari tried to looked hurt, but could not suppress a sly smile.

  ‘Drink of the waters, Eldrad. That is why you came, is it not?’

  The seer gritted his teeth and regarded the incarnation of She Who Thirst’s servant with narrowed eyes.

  ‘I see your intent, weaver of lies. You think that if you seem enthusiastic, to thwart you I will decline. The reality is that you do not want me to drink, and seek to turn my thinking around with these tricks.’

  ‘Of course,’ conceded the daemon with an expression of mocked sadness. ‘I could never hope to outwit an intellect as great as yours, Eldrad. It is my folly that I attempted to do so rather than summoning a horde of my daemonettes and fiends to rend your spirit from your body.’

  N’kari’s words struck a chord and halted Eldrad as he turned back towards the falls. He bit his lip, trying to read something of the daemon’s intent in its expression, but all he saw was guile, which was no more than he expected.

  ‘A pretty-petty conundrum-riddle,’ said the Keeper of Secrets. The daemon placed all four slender hands behind its back and started to pace, circling around Eldrad, keeping the same distance between them. ‘Do you perceive-see a bluff-trick, or witness-countenance a tangle-double-bluff? You think-hope you are free-lost of my mistress-master’s love-hate, but I loathe-adore you, Eldrad. Your arrogance-confidence will be your salvation-downfall. And it will be all the bitter-sweeter to me because it will be at your-my hand that you save-doom your-our people.’

  Eldrad backed away in an attempt to keep both the magical waters and the daemon within view. His mind raced with possibilities, but alighted upon a simple answer.

  ‘You know that I can trust nothing you say, and so you have said both what I want to hear and that which I would not listen to.’ As he spoke, Eldrad moved towards the cascade. It made the floor tremble and roared in his ears, but he knew that it was only his mortal senses trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. ‘I cannot know whether you wish me to partake of the vision-waters or not. All you have done is introduce doubt. Given that my original intent was to drink, it is that course of action you wish me to reconsider. If you truly wanted me to drink, you would not have intervened.’

  ‘Do not!’ snarled N’kari, baring fangs like stilettos.

  Eldrad dispelled his spirit-blade and lunged towards the falls. He brought up the soulglass container, sweeping it through the flow of energy. In the same motion he turned, eyes upon N’kari, and downed the contents.

  The liquid was like sweet acid. His triumph lasted only a moment before the lilting laugh of the Keeper of Secrets reached his ears. It joined the thump of his ow
n heart as the power of the Unshed Tears flowed into him.

  ‘So predictable-entertaining, Eldrad.’ N’kari laughed again. The daemon’s voice, and the sight of the assumed form, became indistinct as Eldrad’s soul burned with the energy of the warp. ‘I just want to see-smell your face-soul when you realise-despise what you have broken-created.’

  The fire of the Unshed Tears coursed through the spirit of Eldrad, threatening to consume him with its power. The hall began to whirl around him, faster and faster, until it became a temporal spiral, forever circling itself through beginning to end. He was a mote upon the maelstrom, swept along by its uncaring power.

  In the froth of spray and crackle of flames he heard N’kari’s mockery. Pride. The daemon had used his own pride against him, the notion that he could not have been wrong to seek the Unshed Tears.

  Pride saved him.

  Indignation at the thought of falling prey to the daemon’s trickery became a pillar at his core, an unshakable foundation beneath his feet. Sheer arrogant stubbornness refused to be swept away by the torrent of the cascade that now poured around him, trying to drown his spirit.

  He absorbed the fire, he drank deeper of the water, infusing himself with its power rather than fighting it.

  Eldrad burst from the raging waters, ascending in a corona of golden light to land a short distance from N’kari, phial and staff still in hand. The daemon rippled, becoming a towering monstrosity of purple flesh with clawed limbs and bovine face. Jewel-like eyes regarded the seer from beneath a deep frown.

  The seer raised his staff, expecting attack.

  ‘It is not enough to absorb-drink the Unshed Tears, Eldrad,’ said the daemon. ‘The power-emptiness is within you now, but you must look-fall into the depths-shadows of your soul to see-feel the vision-truth they contain.’

  ‘Do not try to claim victory from this defeat, N’Kari. You hoped to keep this power from me, but it is mine now.’

  ‘This is the glad-sad expression I want to see.’ The Keeper of Secrets leaned closer, perfumed breath washing over Eldrad. He saw himself reflected in each of the dozen facets of its eyes, a picture of defiance. ‘This is the depth-height of your delusion-revelation, the instant-eternity when you are at the nadir-apex of your confidence-sadness and ambition-betrayal. Come with me then-now, Eldrad, and you can wipe out-rule the void-stars. Deny-love me again, and your-our people are saved-doomed.’