Know No Fear Read online

  He has the dagger in his hand. The athame, unwrapped. He murmurs to his god for protection and forgiveness. Then he makes a cut.

  ‘How are you doing that?’ asks Katt.

  They all look at her.

  Oll smiles.

  ‘Trust me,’ he says. He pushes the knife harder, deepens the cut. He makes the slit vertical, the height of a man. He makes a slit in the air, so that reality parts.

  The daemon sounds come closer.

  Oll draws back the edge of the cut like a curtain. They gasp as they see what’s on the other side. It isn’t here. It isn’t Calth. It isn’t a broken, pitch-black beach.

  Oll looks at them.

  ‘I won’t pretend this is going to be easy,’ he says, ‘because it isn’t. But it’s better than staying here.’

  They stare at him.

  ‘Follow me,’ he says.

  UN//DOING

  ‘We keep fighting.’

  –Ventanus, on Calth, prior to the start of the Underworld War

  EPILOGUE

  [mark: 219,479.25.03]

  Colchis, at the bitter, broken end; the mark of Calth still running after all these damned years. It is essentially a futile measurement, merely symbolic, but sometimes symbolism is all you have left. A ritual. The scum of Colchis should understand that much, at least.

  The world burns, devastated. A world for a world. There is little retribution left to be extracted, little punitive satisfaction to be savoured. But the deed must be finished, so the count can be finished, and this is one great step towards completing the process.

  Ventanus, veteran captain, battered by fortune and service, stands on the outcrop of rock, looking out over the benighted landscape. The firestorms reflect off his polished plate and his grim visor, bright orange patterns dancing on the cobalt-blue and gold. So much has passed since this began. The galaxy has changed, and changed again. The revolutions that stunned his mind on Calth seem insignificant beside what he has witnessed since. The end. The fall. The start. The loss.

  He has not known fear, but he has known pain. The breaking of the order of things. He has seen his species discover that the greatest enemy of all is itself.

  The years spent waging the Underworld War seem so distant. They are fading, almost unremembered, like the empire that followed them, and the Heresy that ended it all.

  His officers are waiting, sergeants in red helms, junior captains with their crests and swords. Ventanus can still remember a time when a red helm meant–

  Times change. Things change. Ways change. They are waiting for him, impatient to get on, wondering what the old bastard is thinking about, wondering what’s taking him so long.

  In low orbit above, the barge Octavius waits, cyclonic torpedoes primed.

  Ventanus turns. He thinks of brothers lost, and looks at the brothers with him. He holds out his mailed hand.

  The colour sergeant passes him the standard. It is old and battered, dented, with a slight twist or two in the haft. Surely, the sergeant thinks, the damned thing could have been cleaned and mended.

  Ventanus takes it, honouring every mark upon it.

  He plants it upright in the burning rock of Colchis. The flickering firelight catches at the golden crest of the standard.

  ‘We march for Macragge!’ the sergeant declares.

  ‘No, not today,’ Ventanus replies. ‘Today, we march for Calth.’

  [mark: unspecified]

  While Word Bearers still live, in the madness of the Maelstrom or in the depths of the warp, the mark of Calth will continue to run.

  It is running now.

  Thanks to

  Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Richard Dugher, Bruce Euans, Laurie Goulding, the High Lords of Lenton, Nick Kyme, Graham McNeill, Lindsey Priestley and Nik Vincent.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dan Abnett is a multiple New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning comic book writer. He has written over forty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies. His previous Horus Heresy novel, Prospero Burns, topped the SF charts in the UK and the US. In addition to writing for Black Library, Dan scripts audio dramas, movies, games, and comics for major publishers in Britain and America. He is also the author of other bestselling novels, including Torchwood: Border Princes, Doctor Who: The Silent Stars Go By, Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero, and Embedded. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent.

  Dan’s blog and website can be found at

  www.danabnett.com

  and you can follow him on Twitter

  @VincentAbnett

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

  Cover illustration by Neil Roberts

  © Games Workshop Limited, 2012. All rights reserved.

  Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2010, 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 978-0-85787-512-9

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise except as expressly permitted under license from the publisher.

  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

  www.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.