The Buried Dagger - James Swallow Read online

  I’ll see you on the other side.

  James Swallow

  June 2018

  Acknowledgements

  First, and most specifically for their support and counsel during the writing of The Buried Dagger, my thanks go to Nick Kyme, ­Laurie Goulding, John French, Chris Wraight and Josh Reynolds.

  Along with them, I raise the Cups to my other comrades in (literary) battle, with whom I have been honoured to march on the long road to Terra over the past decade – Dan Abnett, Alan Bligh, Ben Counter, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Christian Dunn, Marc ­Gascoigne, Toby Longworth, Graham McNeill, Lindsey Priestley, Neil Roberts and Gav Thorpe.

  And finally, a salute in the ancient and martial manner to all my readers. I want to thank every one of you for your support of my writing in the Horus Heresy saga over the past eleven years, and for your dedication and loyalty in allowing us at Black Library to craft this epic mythology. We couldn’t have made this journey without you.

  Here’s to fellow travellers and absent friends.

  About the Author

  James Swallow is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Fear to Tread and Nemesis, which both reached the New York Times bestseller lists. Also for the Horus Heresy, he has written The Flight of the Eisenstein, The Buried Dagger and a series of audio dramas featuring the character Nathaniel Garro, the prose versions of which have now been collected into the anthology Garro. For Warhammer 40,000, he is best known for his four Blood Angels novels, the audio drama Heart of Rage, and his two Sisters of Battle novels. His short fiction has appeared in Legends of the Space Marines and Tales of Heresy.

  An extract from Corax: Lord of Shadows.

  Roboute Guilliman neared his brother’s hiding place. He didn’t need to see him to know it. His brother’s presence prickled the hair on the nape of his neck, the sensation prey felt before the killing bite. Guilliman was wary. He had won, but he could still fall. In the shattered grand concert hall, shadows were everywhere.

  His brother was lord of the shadows. This was his kingdom.

  Stepping carefully over a pile of bodies oozing life fluids, he aimed the Arbitrator upwards, towards the top of a shattered column. Often, his brother attacked from above. Darkness and height defined his ambush technique. There was nothing there. He moved on.

  ‘Your armies are scattered,’ Guilliman boomed. ‘Your worlds are taken. Your last fortress burns. Do you yield, brother?’

  The faintest hiss of air was the only warning Guilliman got of the attack. His brother leapt from a shadowed corner of the broken floor above. Black space took on human shape and dived at him. Guilliman pivoted and leant back to dodge a cruelly curved set of claws aimed at his helm.

  ‘A perfect decapitation strike!’ Guilliman said admiringly. ‘Narrowly evaded.’

  His brother went into a roll and sprang up to his feet. Unlike Guilliman, he was unarmoured, clad in charcoal-black from head to toe, his face smeared with the ashes of his empire. A small chest-plate of ceramite was his only physical defence; the rest came down to stealth and guile. It was a strategy that had almost worked.

  Almost wins no wars.

  Guilliman’s brother attacked again. The claws mounted on the back of his hand fizzled with disruptive energies. Even in full sight he was hard to see. He moved with such staggering speed his motion blurred.

  ‘Yield! You have lost!’ shouted Guilliman. He had no wish to hurt his brother, but his opponent came on regardless.

  Claws whistled around the XIII primarch, jabbing one moment, slashing the next, always in motion, presenting a wall of adamantium. Guilliman left his sword sheathed, dodged the blows and retreated, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  It was a small window of opportunity, a fraction of a second where the chest-plate was unprotected by either claw. Without conscious thought Guilliman reacted to the opening, punching forward hard.

  The Hand of Dominion flared with the release of power. Guilli­man’s brother flew backwards, the chest-plate left broken and smoking by the blow of the power fist. He slammed into the wall, and fell to the rubble covering the ground.

  ‘You are beaten, brother. Yield.’

  The figure sprawled on the floor stared up at him, his black eyes unreadable. His body radiated tension as he gathered himself to spring.

  Guilliman planted a boot gently upon his shattered breastplate, forcing the other primarch back down.

  ‘Do not attempt to rise. You are beaten,’ he said.

  The figure relaxed, and sprawled.

  ‘Do you yield?’ Guilliman repeated.

  The figure considered. The sounds of gunfire outside the grand hall were popping away to nothing. Flights of aircraft screaming through the sky no longer unleashed their ordnance. Black eyes strayed to the dead littering the hall.

  The war was over.

  ‘I yield,’ said Corvus Corax.

  Guilliman smiled. ‘Good.’ He removed his boot. ‘End simulation!’ Guilliman called. ‘Authority prime.’

  A machine answered back.

  Voice print acknowledged. Roboute Guilliman, thirteenth primarch, progenitor of Ultramarines Legion. Simulation ending.

  The unpleasant electricity of the strategio-simulacra buzzed through the back of Guilliman’s skull. Like an ice sculpture melting under a fusion beam, the battlefield dissolved. Segments of cogitator-spun dreams dripped away, revealing reality behind. There was a moment of disconnect. According to his subjective perceptions, Guilliman was standing and armoured. It took a moment to recognise the recumbent figure lying on the couch next to Corax as himself.

  Prepare for reintegration, droned the machine. A necessary warning.

  Guilliman’s sense of location underwent a dramatic shift. It took an act of will not to open his eyes and draw a drowning man’s panicked breath. Corax, who had used the strategio-simulacra fewer times, barely managed to maintain his dignity. His limbs flailed about before stilling.

  ‘Your reaction to the machine is improving. You are becoming accustomed,’ said Guilliman. His voice croaked. His extremities tingled. Being immersed did odd things to the body.

  Corax opened his eyes. Their complete blackness gave him a faintly alien air.

  ‘I dislike the disconnect, but the cognitive dissonance is lessening,’ said Corax. He sat up on the immersion couch and pulled the magnetic cradle from his head. ‘Though I see no reason to repeat this exercise. I think now you have the measure of me. There is probably nothing more you can learn from my techniques.’

  ‘You beat me three times,’ said Guilliman. ‘A feat few have managed.’

  ‘Three from twenty,’ said Corax. ‘You learn very quickly.’ He stretched his arms and grimaced. ‘Those were my best strategies. You countered them all.’

  Guilliman stood. His limbs too were stiff. ‘The strategio-simulacra is an amazing machine. I have never experienced anything so convincing. Our ancestors must have struggled not to lose themselves in these devices, but for all its wonders it does weaken the body.’ He held out his hand to his brother. ‘It is a marvellous toy, and will be a useful tool, but it is not entirely healthy. If you wish to call an end to our exercise, I am willing.’

  ‘I do. Perhaps it is for the best there are no more examples surviving.’ Corax took the offered hand without rancour. Defeat had not embittered him. Guilliman pulled him to his feet.

  ‘I am sure our father’s scientists or the tech-lords of Mars will unlock the simulacra’s secrets soon enough,’ said Guilliman. ‘A new age of enlightenment is upon us. The secrets of the ancients will be ours again. One day, maybe every Legion will have its like. If one ignores its drawbacks, we can see that it is kinder to the mind than a hypnomat, and allows the consciousness to interact fully with the lessons, preserving a man’s self-determination and therefore allowing faster learning. We must make mistakes in order to learn, after all.’

 
Corax glanced around at the machine and the silent men tending to its needs. It was something from the lost Ages of Technology, retrieved by Guilliman on one of his campaigns. In its original format it would probably have been smaller, but the Imperial technologies that had restored it to full function rendered it enormous. Its mechanisms encompassed the room they were in within thick, complicated walls; everything, all the operating stations, connection points, medical devices and the two dozen immersion couches at its centre, were inside the device. Whistling coils and banks of clattering cogitators extended to fill most of the ship’s hold where it was kept.

  ‘I would be careful with it. It is good some of the old know­ledge was lost. I am sure this false reality holds its own evils.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Guilliman allowed. ‘But we are wiser now than before Old Night, and when the Imperium is complete, nothing shall be impossible. Now, perhaps you will join me for further discussion this evening? I have matters to attend to that cannot wait.’

  ‘I have several things to see to myself. Fresh orders from Terra. I must begin preparations to leave.’

  ‘We will be parting ways soon,’ said Guilliman regretfully.

  Corax nodded. He had a grim little smile. It looked pained. He laughed sincerely enough, but smiling seemed to come hard to him. A side effect of a childhood behind bars, Guilliman thought.

  ‘This evening then, my brother,’ said Corax. ‘I look forward to it.’

  Click here to buy Corax: Lord of Shadows.

  For Lindsey and Marc, with thanks.

  A Black Library Publication

  First published in Great Britain in 2019.

  This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

  Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.

  Internal artwork by Tazio Bettin.

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