Incarnation - John French Read online

  BACKLIST

  More tales of the Inquisition from Black Library

  • The Horusian Wars series by John French •

  RESURRECTION

  INCARNATION

  AGENT OF THE THRONE: BLOOD AND LIES

  An audio drama story of the Horusian Wars

  John French

  AGENT OF THE THRONE: TRUTH AND DREAMS

  An audio drama story of the Horusian Wars

  John French

  THE MAIDEN OF THE DREAM

  A story of the Horusian Wars

  John French

  THE PURITY OF IGNORANCE

  A story of the Horusian Wars

  John French

  THE ABSOLUTION OF SWORDS

  A story of the Horusian Wars

  John French

  • The Eisenhorn series by Dan Abnett •

  EISENHORN THE OMNIBUS

  XENOS

  MALLEUS

  HERETICUS

  THE MAGOS

  • The Ravenor series by Dan Abnett •

  RAVENOR THE OMNIBUS

  RAVENOR

  RAVENOR RETURNED

  RAVENOR ROGUE

  PARIAH

  Dan Abnett

  VAULTS OF TERRA: THE CARRION THRONE

  Chris Wraight

  More Warhammer 40,000 stories from Black Library

  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

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Part Two

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Part Three

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne’

  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.

  Special Thanks

  To Ead Brown and Greg Smith. And to Alan Bligh who haunts these pages with ideas shared long ago in kinder times.

  ~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~

  Those who are of the Inquisition

  Covenant, Daemonhunter of the Ordo Malleus, Disciple of the Thorian Dogma

  Vult (deceased), Daemonhunter Lord of the Ordo Malleus, Follower of the Amalathian Principles

  Goldoran Talicto, (deceased) Adherent of the Xanthite Methodology

  Idris, Daemonhunter of the Ordo Malleus, Pursuer of the Horusian Ideal

  Memnon, Witch Hunter of the Ordo Hereticus, Pursuer of the Horusian Ideal

  Argento (deceased), Disciple of the Thorian Dogma

  Those who Serve

  Cleander von Castellan, Rogue trader, inheritor of the von Castellan Dynasty

  Viola von Castellan, Seneschal of the von Castellan Dynasty

  Josef Khoriv, Drill abbot of the Schola Progenium

  Orsino, Judge of the Adeptus Arbites

  Severita, Sister Repentia of the Order of the Bloody Rose

  Koleg, Specialist

  Enna Gyrid, Warrior acolyte, persecutor

  Hesh, Black Priest of the Order of Abhorrence

  Ninkurra, Venator

  Geddon, Auspextra

  Cinis, Oblated warrior

  Mylasa, Primaris psyker, disciple of the Nepenthe, Bringer of Oblivion

  Glavius-4-Rho, Magos

  Kynortas, Master-at-arms of the Dionysia

  Arabella Ghast, Void mistress of the Dionysia

  Iaso, Medicae Primus

  Epicles, Astropath

  Bal, Castellan Household Lifeward

  Gald, Proctor of the Adeptus Arbites

  Those who are Other

  Xilita, Bishop of the Great Cathedral of the Monastery of the Last Candle

  Sul, Archdeacon of the diocese of the Monastery of the Last Candle

  Agata, Sister Superior of the Order of the Argent Shroud

  Iacto, Abbot of the Sage Order of the Faithful

  Claudia, Acolyte of the Sage Order of the Faithful

  Loa, Senior shrine guard of the Congregation of the Bearers of the Lamp

  Gorda, Senior Shrine Guard of the Congregation of the Bearers of the Lamp

  Yahdah, Void-speaker elder
>
  Pious-XVI, Servitor

  Kordus Nem, Pilgrim

  Acia, Pilgrim

  Those who are Anathema

  Krade, False prophet

  ‘But then I sigh and, with a piece of scripture,

  Tell them that God bids us do good for evil;

  And thus I clothe my naked villainy

  With odd old ends stolen out of Holy Writ,

  And seem a saint when most I play the devil.’

  – attributed to the dramaturge Shakespire (fl. M2)

  PROLOGUE

  RED PILGRIM

  Yolis’ hands shook on the controls as the lander dropped through the clouds.

  ‘Craft X-T-341, this is Dominicus Prime control,’ the servitor voice crackled over the vox. ‘You will identify and clarify your purpose.’

  Yolis blinked. Outside the canopy the storm clouds billowed past, rain sizzling off where the fuselage still held the heat of re-entry.

  ‘Craft X-T-341, you will comply.’

  He did not feel well. A fever ache had been crawling through him ever since he had gone to the hangar…

  Why had he gone to the hangar?

  He blinked. Why was he airborne?

  ‘Be at peace, my son,’ said the voice from behind him. For a moment he started. No one should be in the cockpit. Gred and Klaia knew the rules and stayed in the back until they were on the ground unloading. They would never come into the cockpit. Unless there was a problem. Unless…

  ‘Peace…’ The word hummed in his ear. A hand touched his shoulder. He flinched but then went still. Warmth spread through him. He could still feel the fever ache in his muscles and taste the blood from when his nose had started bleeding – he just did not care now. The same went for the pain in his left hand where his small finger hung by a ribbon of skin. Everything was happening on the other side of a curtain of warmth and comfort and peace.

  ‘There, my son,’ said the voice. It was rich and melodic, but there was something beyond that melody, something jagged beneath the velvet. ‘All is as it should be. I am sorry that this respite will not be yours forever, but peace is not truth…’

  ‘Craft X-T-341, this is the final opportunity for your compliance – you will identify and clarify your purpose.’

  He reached for the vox control and keyed transmit.

  ‘This is craft X-T-341, we are…’ His thoughts blurred for a second, and he turned his head to look behind him. The hand on his shoulder gripped his head and forced it forwards. He resisted for a moment, and then relaxed. He licked his lips. They were wet with blood again. ‘We are a bonded transport of the chartist freighter the High Illumination, carrying pilgrims to the Monastery of the Last Candle. We are sanctioned for this purpose under the blessing of High Deacon Cathia.’

  The vox fizzed for a moment.

  ‘How many pilgrims do you carry?’

  Yolis blinked slowly, his thoughts turning like heat-warped gears.

  ‘One,’ he said. ‘Just one.’

  The vox static filled a long moment.

  ‘You may proceed.’

  ‘Acknowledged,’ said Yolis, and opened his mouth to speak the customary words of closing, but found them stuck behind his teeth. ‘Em…’ Something in him was fighting the words he was trying to say. ‘Emperor’s b…b… blessing to you.’

  ‘His light shine on you,’ droned the servitor in rote response. ‘Communication terminated.’

  Yolis was shaking in his seat. Something was wrong, but he could not think clearly enough to recognise what it was.

  The clouds surrounding the lighter vanished, and they were suddenly descending through clear air. Beneath the grey layer of cloud, there lay a bare plateau. The ground was the colour of hearth ash. Patches of early snow dusted the northern faces of low hills, and frost-shattered stones clustered underneath jagged crags. Dry stream beds traced their way across the expanse towards the feet of snow-capped mountains. When the sun-season came, the plateau would shine with threads of melt water. That time, though, lay on the other side of the encroaching Season of Night. It was barely noon and already the daylight was just a sullen glow clinging to the horizon.

  The monastery lay on the boundary between the tundra and the mountains. In many ways, it looked like an attempt to build a new mountain at the feet of the old. Spires, domes and enclosed walkways had been piled up and spread out in a haphazard mass. Drift settlements ringed its edges like outgrowths of fungus from an ancient tree. Plumes of smoke and heat breathed into the frigid air above from geothermal stacks, and the faint lights of hundreds of thousands of stained-glass windows winked at Yolis as he banked to begin his landing approach.

  ‘Set down on the edge of the structure. Do not land on the main platforms,’ said the warm voice from behind Yolis.

  He blinked rapidly. Something wrong… He felt pain somewhere and he could remember something… something in tattered red, moving with slow care, a smile on a paper-pale face… red… sharp steel and screaming…

  ‘Set us down, my son.’ The voice was deep and patient, like a saw blade’s cut finding a notch. He felt warm again, and the memories faded back into the numb place that for now he did not care about.

  His hands moved on the controls and he arched the lighter away from the landing pads set amongst the high spires. The lighter lurched as the thrusters cut its speed and set it down on the rocky ground. A hundred metres away a tangle of scrap structures marked the beginning of the edge of the monastery.

  ‘Open the rear hatch,’ said the voice.

  He complied, and felt the hand move from his shoulder.

  ‘What do I do now?’ he asked. The warmth was fading from his thoughts.

  ‘Leave here,’ said the voice that was no longer warm, but cold and sharp. Yolis blinked, raising his left hand from the controls. It was red. ‘I…’

  ‘You shall leave here,’ said the voice, and Yolis felt the command jab into him. He returned his hand to the controls and began to cycle the thrusters for lift-off.

  Behind him, he heard the hatch leading to the cargo space open and the hiss as hydraulics pressed the rear ramp down. A gust of wind blew through the lighter, bringing the smell of frost… and something else… something like a sewer, or the sluice drains running under a slaughterhouse. He felt himself gag, but did not turn around. His eyes stayed looking forward, as though a hand were still holding the back of his head. The stone bulk of the monastery rose up and up before his eyes. He wondered if its jagged summits were all statues of saints. That is what the pilgrims on the High Illumination had said – a thousand saints to look down on the faithful in light and in darkness…

  The ramp began to hiss shut in the back of the lighter. Yolis wondered why Gred and Klaia had not said anything. Gred in particular would not miss the chance to growl some profanity-mixed thought about how anything other than sitting down was a waste of time. But the thought went nowhere, and Yolis did not turn around to look behind him.

  The pilgrim he had brought came into view, walking across the bare ground towards the nearest cluster of drift dwellings. He wore deep red robes, ragged at the edges, and was very tall. His hook was raised, but he paused and looked back at the lighter as he crested a low rise. The face beneath the robe was parchment-pale, and smiling. He blinked once, and then twice more very quickly.

  Blink… Blink-blink.

  There was something about the face and its expression, as though it did not fit the head underneath properly. The pilgrim raised a hand, though whether in farewell or benediction, Yolis could not tell. He engaged the thrusters, and the lighter lurched from the ground. Beneath him, the man in red turned and resumed his walk towards the monastery.

  Yolis banked the lighter around and fed power to the engines. The noon light outside was already fading to a bruised twilight. Beneath him the bare ground sped past. He looked straight ahead. In his skull the warm fog slowly drained away.

  Blink…

  Why was he here? The thought sparked and caught in his mind. The Hi
gh Illumination had been scheduled to break orbit and make for the system edge. There were rumours of a storm surge in the immaterium and the captain wanted to run ahead of it. The ship would have already gone. Why was he here?

  His hands began to shake on the controls. The pain in his left arm snapped into sharp focus. He cried out. The lighter lurched as he pulled the hand back from the controls.

  Blood – he was covered in blood. His severed small finger swung on its thread of skin. There was blood on the controls and on the floor. A thick reek of offal and iron filled his nose as he drew breath to scream.

  He remembered now. He remembered the man in the red robes with the pale face that did not fit. He remembered him coming onto the launch decks. He remembered saying that the man should not be there, and the man smiling and leaning forward to whisper something that was an explosion of pain behind Yolis’ eyes…

  Beyond the canopy, snow was flicking across the darkening sky. He was breathing hard, tasting acid on his blood-crusted lips…

  He remembered Gred saying that they couldn’t make a surface run before the ship broke anchor. He remembered the man in tattered red hiss something in Gred’s ear, and the loader folding to the floor, weeping. He remembered… oh God-Emperor. He remembered Gred and Klaia slumped on the floor of the lighter’s cargo compartment as the ramp sealed and they launched from the ship. He remembered glancing back and seeing the red pilgrim bending over them, smiling…

  He screamed, and the scream went on and on, and the reek of blood and gut fluid filled his lungs as he breathed to scream again, and all he could see was the pilgrim’s smile.

  The lighter tumbled from the sky. In the last seconds of its descent it seemed to fight to rise. Then it slammed into the frozen foothills of a range of mountains. Yellow fire unfolded into the night, but there was no one there to see it.

  PART ONE

  IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF SAINTS

  ONE

  The harvest pilgrims came to the glass tabernacle as they always had. They trod the half-severed stalks down, and sent their prayer smoke into the blue sky, a slowly gathering tide of people old and young, man and woman, all clad in the sacred blue of rain. Thousands of them had already gathered around the tabernacle. They swirled about it, white smoke puffing from their fume pipes, scenting the air with fruit and spice.