Showing results for "David Annandale" in Science Fiction

Cerastes, Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers, has returned to the world he once called home. Though his host has been crushed by the fearsome Palatine Aesura and her Sororitas of the Order of the Thorn, Cerastes' dark ambition is undaunted. He will have his revenge. He will resurrect the Eightfold Bane. And he will convert the world he despises to the worship of Chaos. Legitur is about to receive the Word, and it will burn with the fires of revolution.

Throughout the tortured galaxy, Ephrael Stern is known by many names. The Thrice-born. The Daemonifuge. The Heretic Saint. Trapped deep within Imperium Nihilus following the coming of the Great Rift, the maligned Sister of Battle fears the Imperium is no more. The God-Emperor’s light, which has guided her through centuries of strife, has too extinguished. Seemingly forsaken, Stern is bereft until a mysterious stranger arrives, offering her a new destiny. One that might yet see the Imperium saved. Stern must prove herself worthy of the God-Emperor’s grace once more.

On the planet Mistral, an uprising of barons has upset the delicate balance of power. But, as Yarrick was soon forced to learn, Mistral and Imperial politics are often murky, the truth seldom clear cut. As war engulfs the world, a plot unravels that pits old friends against one another and fashions unusual alliances. Chaos cults, the fanatical Adepta Sororitas and clandestine inquisitors all stand between Yarrick and his mission. Here is where the legend began. In this crucible, Lord Commissar Sebastian Yarrick was forged in blood.

The Heresy came to Calth without warning. In just a few hours of betrayal and bloodshed, the proud warriors of the XIIIth Legion - Guilliman's own Ultramarines - were laid low by the treachery of their erstwhile brothers of the XVIIth. Now, as the planet is scoured by solar flares from the wounded Veridian star, the survivors must take the fight to the remaining Word Bearers and their foul allies, or face damnation in the gloomy arcology shelters beneath the planet's surface.

Imperium Secundus lies revealed as a heretical folly. Terra has not fallen, though it remains inaccessible. Sanguinius, Guilliman and the Lion El’Johnson, the primarchs of the Triumvirate, must reach Terra at all costs. They seek to defend the Emperor and to atone for their sins. But the Ruinstorm, a galaxy-wide maelstrom of chaos, hides the Throneworld from the primarchs. Now the fleets of three Legions depart Macragge, and the primarchs will stop at nothing to overcome the Ruinstorm.

War makes for strange alliances - and so it is for the free city of the Colonnade, which must turn to the Mother of Nightmares and her dynasty of monsters to defend themselves against the hordes of Chaos. The Colonnade, a free city, is the jewel of Ghur, obsessed with purity in a realm of bestial savagery. But now, it faces annihilation at the hands of an unstoppable beastherd. In a desperate gamble, Councillor Atella Reigehren requests the aid of a being anathema to the Colonnade. She seeks Lauka Vai, the Mother of Nightmares, and her dynasty of monsters, the Avengorii.

In the aftermath of the Dropsite Massacre at Isstvan V, a battered and bloodied force of Iron Hands, Raven Guard and Salamanders regroups on a seemingly insignificant death world. Fending off attacks from all manner of monstrous creatures, the fractious allies find hope in the form of human refugees fleeing from the growing war and cast adrift upon the tides of the warp.

Once, the Galaspar System suffered under the cruel regime of the Order. Billions of people toiled endlessly to enrich their masters, enduring short lives of poverty, squalor and fear. But Galaspar’s sins did not go unnoticed by the Imperium, and so Death itself sentenced the Order to annihilation. Mortarion, newly uplifted to commander of the Death Guard, descended upon the world, and with him came a slaughter of untold proportions. The sheer brutality of Mortarion’s campaign left the Imperium appalled.

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.

The Siege of Terra looms, and the fate of the galaxy balances on a razor's edge. Roboute Guilliman leads the immense fleet of the Ultramarines in a race towards the Throneworld, and such is the power he commands that he could turn the tide of the war in the loyalists' favour. As determined as Guilliman is to reach Terra, Horus is as resolute in delaying his brother primarch until it is too late. Guilliman's path through the Ruinstorm crosses through the Charchera system, and here, Warsmith Khrossus and a lone company of Iron Warriors have been given a fateful mission.

As the Emperor marshals his armies to reclaim the galaxy for the glory of mankind, one by one his Space Marine Legions are reunited with their missing primarchs. The XVIII Legion are still waiting to find their true identity, unaware their own lord has been found. In the Taras Division, legionaries face annihilation as they take a last, desperate stand against a monstrous ork invasion. Meanwhile, on Nocturne, Vulkan has raised and trained a new force of warriors. Now it is the time for him to lead his sons into battle.

The galaxy burns at Horus' command, and a billion more lives are lost with each passing moment - though it was not always so. Once, the title of Warmaster stood for honour, loyalty and a fierce pride in the strength of the Space Marine Legions. But perhaps by following the myriad lines of destiny and defiance that were already woven around the primarchs and their sons, we may yet come to understand the bitterness that can eat away at even the most steadfast of souls....

The Battle Titans of the Adeptus Titanicus are towering war engines, striding to war as holy effigies of the Omnissiah. Greatest of all are the mighty Warlord Titans, their weapons bringing righteous death to alien and heretic alike. Still reeling from a near disastrous battle against tyranids, the Pallidus Morr demi-legio is assigned to a new warzone, a nearby forge world which has fallen under the sway of Chaos.

Blade of Purity contains two linked tales of the Grey Knights: Incorruptible and True Name.

For many long years, the ork warlord known as the Overfiend of Octarius has bedevilled the Imperium, ruling his alien empire in the heart of the Emperor's realm. Now, at last, three Chapters of Space Marines come together to destroy the greenskin menace and restore Imperial rule. The Salamanders, White Scars and Raven Guard, together with their allies from the Astra Militarum and bolstered by the aid of the mercurial alien eldar, fall upon the worlds of Octarius system with chainsword and bolter, bringing death to the orks.

The Honoured joins the survivors from both sides in the immediate aftermath of the attack on Calth as they are driven into the subterranean arcology shelters by the tortured Veridian star. While their primarch, Roboute Guilliman, had planned for many seemingly unthinkable eventualities, the Ultramarines now face a new war in the underworld. The Unburdened follows Kurtha Sedd of the Third Hand Chapter of the Word Bearers. Garro: Vow of Faith tells the continuing story of Nathaniel Garro.

The Horus Heresy is a civil war on a scale the likes of which the galaxy has never seen before. After the Great Crusade united the disparate worlds of humanity, the very warriors who made it possible turned on each other and tore it apart. The Siege of Terra looms, and the fate of the galaxy balances on a razor's edge.

Long considering themselves persecuted by the rest of the Imperium, the apostles of the XVIIth Legion have courted sedition, betrayal and even open heresy for decades. But for Kurtha Sedd of the Third Hand Chapter, the Word Bearers' assault on Calth has proven...troubling. Drawn into the haunted shadows of the planet's underworld, the Chaplain and his devout brethren must now put aside all other concerns and continue to wage war against the Ultramarines, no matter the ultimate cost.

Despite the Imperium's best attempts to forestall the ork plague that is wreaking havoc in human space, an ork attack moon now hangs over Terra. As its malevolent presence gazes down at the Imperial Palace, terrified citizens run riot in the streets. In a last-ditch attempt to destroy the attack moon, a proletarian crusade is launched. Thousands of ships large and small head to the moon carrying billions of citizens, all eager to take the fight to the enemy.

The Imperium is at war – with xenos, the servants of Chaos, and worse. Warriors, both human and post-human, fight on far-flung battlefields with no end in sight, selling their lives dearly for the sprawling domain of Humanity to hold on for just a moment longer. This collection of short stories and a novella tells just a fraction of their tales. This anthology features stories from some of Black Library's most beloved authors, including Dan Abnett, Guy Haley, and Mike Brooks.