The Warhammer 40k Bible by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-04-26T18:12:35+00:00

+++Aboard the Warmasters

Ship+++

Even through the shields the impact makes the Imperial Palace shake. With a

Screech of tortured stone an angel topples from its alcove high on the throne

room wall and crashes to the marble floor a kilometre below. It shatters into

a million pieces. Splinters of stone flash across the hall like shrapnel.

From his throne the Emperor watches his warriors mill around in confusion.

This hall holds ten thousand men, seasoned veterans, and all are now

panicking. He knows they are more frightened by his silence than by the enemy.

They look to him for leadership and he can give them none.

For the first time in his millennia-long life the Emperor knows despair. The

magnitude of his defeat stuns him. The lunar bases have fallen. Most of the

Earth is under the Warmaster's heel. Rebel Titans surround the palace and are

held at bay only by the desperate efforts of a few loyalists. It is only a

matter of time before the palace's defences fail and the last bastions of

resistance fall.

"Sire, what are your orders?" asks Rogal Dorn, massive dark-haired Primarch of

the Imperial Fists. His golden armour has lost its lustre, is dented in a

dozen places by bolter shells. The Emperor doesn't answer. He is lost within

himself seeking answers to his own questions.

He has come at last to the dark place, the time of testing, the era hidden

from his precognitive vision and beyond which he cannot see. The moment he has

always dreaded has arrived. Is my time over, he wonders? Is this where it all

ends? Is this why I have reached the limits of my prophetic powers. Is this

where I die?

He feels bewildered. Even now, with the Traitor Warmaster's forces battering

at the gate, he finds it difficult to believe that he has been betrayed.

Horus was more than a trusted comrade, more like a favoured son. Of all the

Primarchs the Emperor relied on him most. Not for a second had the Emperor

doubted him, not even when word had come from the Savage Worlds that the

Warmaster was gathering forces. He had deluded himself that Horus must have

good reason to do so without consulting him. I should have been warned by the

failure of my precognition, he thinks.

"Sire, what are your orders?" asks Kane, acting Fabricator-General of the

Adeptus Mechanicus. He stares at the Emperor, a trick of the light turning the

glass slits of his brass mask into accusing eyes. Once more the Emperor does

not reply. Kane's presence reminds him that not even the head of the Adeptus

is to be trusted. His superior, the former Fabricator-General, has chosen to

side with Horus.

On Mars civil war rages between factions of Tech-Priests. Ancient, forbidden

weapons are being deployed. Viral plagues kill millions. Fusion bombs scar the

earth.

So much will be lost. He thinks of the slow piecing together of the old

science. The Librarium Technologicus is in flame now, ancient core data

systems in meltdown. The Great Crusade, as much a quest for knowledge as a war

to reclaim the human worlds, is ended. The Warmaster's treachery has seen to

that.

"Sire, what are your orders?" Asks Sanguinius, angel winged Primarch of the

Blood Angels.

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