A WARHAMMER 40,000 NOVEL
DARK APOSTLE
Anthony Reynolds
For my brother, Nick, who always believed I could do it.
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 Emperors 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 Imperial Guard 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.
As Sanguine Orb waxes strong and Pillar of Clamour rises high,
The Peal of Nether shakes,
And Great Wyrms of The Below wreak the earth
With flame and gaseous exhalation.
Roar of Titans will smite the mountains and they shall tumble.
Depths of Onyx shall engulf the lands,
and then exposed shall lay
The Undercroft,
Death and Mastery.
The door shall be opened to he of pure faith
Into Darkness two descend,
Apostate and he who would be,
Into madness and confusion descend,
Restless dead and creatures old,
The Undying One to face.
Master of the cog will come in chains and tattered robes,
To become Enslaved,
To unleash the Orb of Night and Breaking Dawn.
One shall fall, he of lesser faith, he unmarked by godly touch,
His fate to remain, trapped eternal,
