The skitarii are the soldiers of the Machine God, the tireless legions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Holy warriors, they carry the word of the Omnissiah across the galaxy, destroying impure machines and spearheading the Quest for Knowledge. A discovery of ancient technology sends a skitarii legion into battle on a forge world overrun by Chaos. When a cataclysm cuts him off from his tech-priest overseers, Stroika must rally his forces and battle both corrupt machines and Chaos Space Marines.

Before the being called the Emperor revealed himself, before the rise of the aeldari, before the necrontyr traded their flesh for immortal metal, the world was born in violence. Even when they inhabited bodies of flesh, Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner were polar opposites. Trazyn, a collector of historical oddities, presides over a gallery full of the most dangerous artefacts - and people - of the galactic past. Orikan, a chronomancer without peer, draws zodiacs that predict and manipulate the future. 

No matter the foe, regardless of the odds, the proud warriors of the Dark Angels stubbornly refuse to accept defeat. Descendants of the First Legion, they stand foremost amongst the Chapters of the Space Marines, mankind’s mightiest defenders. None fight with more grim determination than the Dark Angels, and their renowned special companies - the Deathwing and the Ravenwing - are held in awe by allies and enemies alike. Yet behind their devotion to the Imperium lies a dark obsession.

As the Great Rift tears the galaxy apart, portents and darkness beset Mephiston. At the time when he needs his psychic sight the most, the chief librarian's powers are rendered blind. Haunted by the ghosts of the damned, their purpose unclear, Mephiston takes his ship the Blood Oath and the Blood Angels in his charge to the world of Morsus, where he believes the source of his psychic blindness is to be found. But Morsus is embroiled in conflict too, a longstanding struggle between the Imperium and some of its most ancient foes called the Revenant Crusade. 

Dumped on a nowhere world by the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, the Red Sunz Mek mob are struggling to survive. When a call to Waaagh! rings out across the planet, the chance at survival, as well as some shooty-fun, beckons. But all is not what it seems. Only an ork with real orky know-wots can hope to overcome the False Waaagh...!

Lord of the mystical and uncanny, Magnus the Red has long studied the ancient crafts of sorcery. A psyker without peer, save only for the Emperor himself, he commands his loyal followers of the Thousand Sons Legion in the Great Crusade, though also vigilant for any lost knowledge they might recover from the remains of dead human civilisations.

Long before the coming of the Imperium, the realm of Ultramar was ruled by Roboute Guilliman, the last Battle King of Macragge. Even after learning of his true heritage as a primarch son of the Emperor of Mankind, he strove to expand his domain as efficiently and benevolently as possible, with the XIII Legion Ultramarines as his alone to command.

From out of the shadows of the Silent War, a hero emerges. Clad all in grey, an errant warrior of the Legiones Astartes kneels before the Regent of Terra, and accepts a solemn new duty - Battle-Captain Garro, once commander of the Eisenstein, now Agentia Primus of Malcador the Sigillite. From the desolation of Isstvan to the halls of the Imperial Palace itself, he stands as a paragon of loyalty and protector of the innocent, ever ready to strike back at the traitorous allies of the Warmaster.

With the Dark Angels spread across a hundred systems, primarch Lion El'Jonson stands as Lord Protector of Ultramar - though his true motives are known to few indeed, and old rivalries on the home world threaten to tear the Legion in half. But when word comes of the Night Lords' attack on Sotha, the Lion's brutal actions bring Imperium Secundus once again to the brink of civil war.

After Isstvan, after Deliverance, the Raven Guard still endure. Their primarch Corvus Corax has rallied countless warriors to his banner, striking back at the forces of the Warmaster on every front - from the degenerate hereteks of the Mechanicum to the cruel legionaries of the Sons of Horus, none shall escape his wrath. But although Corax has managed to stall the physical corruption of his own Space Marines, what of their spirit? And what sinister end must await those who dwell forever in the darkness?

On Periremunda, the populace are rioting. With local forces unable to contain the widespread civil disorder, Commissar Cain and his regiment of Valhallans are called in to help. However, it seems there is more to the rebellion than first appeared, and Cain suspects sinister forces at work behind the scenes. When the commissar is reunited with Inquisitor Amberley Vail, it seems his fears are realised. In this the fifth book in the popular Ciaphas Cain series, our hero is thrown into a deadly conspiracy that even he might not be able to emerge from alive.

With the noble Emperor Sanguinius ruling from Macragge, Imperium Secundus stands as a lone beacon of hope even as the Warmaster's forces continue to ravage the rest of the galaxy. Roboute Guilliman, still Master of Ultramar, has convinced his brother that Terra has fallen and that the mysterious Mount Pharos on Sotha now holds the key to mankind's future.

From the battlefields of Phall and Isstvan, to the haunted shadows of Terra itself - the greatest war in the history of mankind rages on. While the traitor Legions continue their campaign of terror across the galaxy, preparations are made for the defence of the Imperial Palace and the final, inevitable reckoning that must yet come between Horus and the Emperor....

The paths of Roboute Guilliman and his fallen brother Mortarion bring them inexorably together on Iax. Once a jewel of the Imperium, the garden world is dying as the plans of the Lord of Death to use it as a fulcrum to drag the stellar realm of Ultramar into the warp come to deadly fruition. While Guilliman attempts to prevent the destruction of his kingdom, Mortarion schemes to bring his brother low with the Godblight, a disease created in the Cauldron of Nurgle itself, made with the power to destroy a son of the Emperor. 

Detlef Sierck, the self-proclaimed greatest playwright in the world, has declared that his next production will be a recreation of the end of the Great Enchanter Drachenfels - to be staged at the very site of his death, the Fortress of Drachenfels itself. But the castle's dark walls still hide a terrible secret which may make the opening night an evening to remember!