In the skies above Armageddon, the Black Templars prepare for war, and the Ancients are awakened. Brother Adelard, interred in the Dreadnought Invictus Potens, leads his brothers to war, facing the prospect of a second death in service to the God-Emperor.

In surviving the horrors onboard the Eisenstein, Nathaniel Garro proved his courage and absolute loyalty to the Emperor. On his return to Terra, Garro is despatched on a mission of even greater importance - a mission given to him by Malcador the Sigillite himself. He soon finds himself back amongst the stars and on the fields of battle, thrust into a warzone where the Ultramarines are purported to be battling a greenskin invasion. Once again Garro must fight for survival, but now he also fights to achieve a higher purpose....

Since the near-destruction of the Iron Hands, Raven Guard and Salamanders on Isstvan V, scattered warbands from these 'shattered Legions' have waged a guerrilla war on Horus' forces across the galaxy. Now, the crew of the Sisypheum are drawn into a covert assault on a hidden Alpha Legion outpost - an assault orchestrated by none other than the infamous warleader Shadrak Meduson himself. But what does Meduson really hope to make from such a bold move against the sons of Alpharius, arguably the undisputed masters of deception?

On the doorstep of Holy Terra, the shadow of treachery still lurks. Upon a comet-shrine dedicated to the glory of Unity, a group of heretic Word Bearers prepare to return to the Solar System after being abandoned by their brethren - only the forces commanded by Sigismund, First Captain of the Imperial Fists, stand between the traitors and their goal. But will the legendary Templar's skill at arms be enough to prevail over this new enemy, or will the doubt in his heart prove ultimately to be his undoing?

The eldar are an ancient race whose mode of war blends spirituality with a unique mastery of technology. In times of need, their entire race will rouse to war, led by terrifying, almost mythological figures - the phoenix lords, immortal beings that embody the warrior nature of the eldar. When a burgeoning ork empire starts to pose a threat to the eldar peoples, Jain Zar travels to the craftworld Ulthwé to warn them of the danger.

Nathaniel Garro and the Knights-Errant offer a tantalising answer to a question many fans of Warhammer 40,000 and the Horus Heresy have asked themselves - did every member of the traitor Legions turn against the Imperium? This collection of stories follows some few Astartes who turned on their Legion rather than their emperor or else became blackshields - renegades in that grey space somewhere between loyalty and betrayal. 

Becalmed in the backwater Phall system, the Imperial Fists' relief fleet originally headed for Isstvan III has been waiting out the warp storms that waylaid them so many months ago. Under the assumed command of Captain Alexis Polux and seemingly forgotten by the rest of the Imperium, they hope yet to complete their mission and report back to their primarch Rogal Dorn, so that they might return to the greater conflict.

Plying the stars and forgotten backwaters of the Imperium, Rogue Trader Captain Athene Santiago and her eclectic crew are chasing pirates when their quarry inexplicably vanishes, only to return a moment later. Unwilling to let her bounty go unclaimed, Santiago ventures aboard the now stricken vessel, but what she finds defies reason and leads to a discovery of something ancient and terrifying that could threaten not only her crew and her ship but the entire sector.

The Imperium has been brought to the edge of extinction by an ork invasion of unprecedented scale and depth. Piecemeal strikes against the invaders prove ineffective - for every ork fleet destroyed, five more appear. The only solution is to find and kill the orks' warlord - the Great Beast. Surely if its leader is killed, the greenskins' empire will fall apart in agony of infighting and confusion.

The Great Devourer is descending on the world of Tarsis Ultra, but to defeat the xenos horrors, Captain Uriel Ventris may have to embark upon a dangerous and unorthodox mission. 

The galaxy is divided, but while his armies prepare for battle, the Emperor himself remains curiously absent. In his place stands Malcador - legendary Sigillite, First Lord of Terra and regent to the throne - now arguably the single most powerful man in the Imperium. Army officer Khalid Hassan reports back to the Palace after a disastrous secret mission into the wastelands of Gyptus but soon learns an awful truth about the destiny of mankind. Where do Malcador's true loyalties lie?

The Black Ships are a mysterious and fearful sight - unmarked vessels that scour the distant reaches of the galaxy, ever watchful for latent psykers and witchbreeds for the monolithic Astra Telepathica. When one such ship, the Validus, is found drifting unpowered in the nightmare realm of the warp, it falls to the Sisters of Silence to uncover the reason behind it. As pariahs capable of blocking even the most potent psychic energy, Amendera Kendel and young Leilani Mollitas ready themselves for the worst....

Nathaniel Garro, knight errant and agent of the Sigillite, returns from the battlefields of Calth to find a new mission already waiting for him - a ragged fleet of Space Marines from several Legions lingers at the edge of the Terran system. With the presence of World Eaters and Emperor's Children causing concern among the loyalist defenders and drawing a grim parallel with his own frantic flight, Garro must look beneath the obvious if he is to determine friend from foe....

Ahriman, greatest sorcerer of the Thousand Sons and architect of the Rubric that laid his Legion low, continues to walk the path towards salvation, or damnation. Searching for a cure for his Legion, he is forced to consider - was the great ritual somehow flawed from the very beginning? The answer may lie within the mysterious artefact known as the Athenaeum of Kalimakus, a grimoire of forgotten knowledge that is reputed to contain the exact words of the lost Book of Magnus...or, perhaps, even a transcription of the primarch’s deepest and most secret thoughts. 

During the Great Crusade, it falls to the primarch Corax of the Raven Guard to humble the immense void-cities of the Carinae. Determined to bring these worlds into compliance, he unleashes the might of his Legion and a massive war host of the Imperial Army. But the lords of Carinae are well defended and without remorse....