We Were Brothers by Richard Fox

Author:Richard Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction: space opera (FLS)
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2025-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

About the Author

Richard Fox is the author of over fifty novels and is best known for the Ember War Saga. ‘We Were Brothers’ is his first short story for Black Library. He lives in fabulous Las Vegas with his wife and three boys, where he paints entirely too many Deathwatch miniatures.

An extract from Huron Blackheart: Master of the Maelstrom.

Blood flows.

Not in veins, where evolution has dictated that it should, but over metal decking pitted with the gradual ravages of oxidisation that no amount of care could prevent. It dribbles down walls, from where it arced after being brutally released from its fleshy prison. It seeps into cracks and crevices. It pools in slight depressions, and drips through gratings to drizzle onto whatever lies beneath. The metallic tang of it is everywhere, mixing with the stink of burned hair, the chemical reek of promethium fumes, the sharp scent of cordite, and hints of ozone as the charged blades of power weapons gradually fuse the atoms of the air.

And through the blood comes the Blood Reaver.

Once, Lugft Huron was the Chapter Master of the Astral Claws. Once, he was a towering Space Marine warrior, the galaxy’s image of nobility and righteousness: at least, to those parts of the galaxy that cowered behind the shield his warriors made from their bodies, and their guns, and their will. Once, Huron believed in the Imperium, and in the Emperor, and in his Chapter’s duties: at least in his own way.

But in the Imperium there is little tolerance for any way other than that which the Imperium itself dictates. The tool that does not completely fit its role is eliminated; and if, like Lugft Huron, the tool is too tough and too stubborn to be properly eliminated, it is cast out.

The problem with that, of course, is that those who are cast out can come back. And when they do, their bodies and their guns and their will are no longer a shield, but a sword aimed for the heart.

Huron Blackheart looks around and sees death: not just death, but slaughter. This is not a military outpost; not an Astra Militarum barracks, an Adeptus Astartes fortress-monastery, or a convent of the Adepta Sororitas. This is Adeptus Mechanicus mining station Delta-Kappa-39006, plundering the mineral resources of an asteroid with a diameter of roughly three hundred miles, and its defences have been easily overwhelmed. The ships tasked with its protection were annihilated by the Spectre of Ruin within moments of its exit from the warp, and the Red Corsairs have overrun the station itself. Huron could have targeted the astropath’s tower, to ensure that the station could not call for help, but he has not cared enough to do so.

Let the blind psykers scream. Abaddon the Despoiler has ripped the galaxy apart, and the Imperium has far greater matters to attend to. No one is coming here.

‘Progress?’ Huron rasps. His voice is as damaged as the rest of him. What was once a commanding basso boom is now a phlegm-edged rattle.

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