Showing results by narrator "Richard Reed" in All Categories

At the stroke of midnight on the dawn of December, five-year-old Finn Albedo is found frozen in the city park on a pedestal of ice. The doctor says his heart is beating, but no one can wake him. Finn’s big sister, Bianca, suspects the beautiful sparkling book Finn got from the library has something to do with it all but the mysterious book has vanished and no one will listen. As more children are frozen, Bianca realises she’s running out of time.

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.

After a long and distinguished career defending the Imperium from its many enemies, Commissar Cain is enjoying a well-deserved retirement on Perlia, teaching in a schola progenium. But when a Black Crusade threatens the sector, all able-bodied citizens must rise to the defence, including Cain and his cadets. As the forces of Chaos overwhelm Perlia, can the wily commissar prove himself to be a real hero of the Imperium one last time?

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.

Exile to the miserable world of Sedh, the disgraced Necron Lord Oltyx is consumed with bitterness. Once heir to the throne of a dynasty, he now commands nothing but a dwindling garrison of warriors, in a never-ending struggle against Ork invaders. Oltyx can think of nothing but the prospect of vengeance against his betrayers, and the reclamation of his birthright. But the Orks are merely the harbingers of a truly unstoppable force. Unless Oltyx acts to save his dynasty, revenge will win him only ashes.

Commissar Ciaphas Cain and the Valhallan 597th are in the thick of it again, putting down an uprising of Chaos cultists on an Imperial mining world. Though their mission is a success, they find evidence that the corruption might have spread to other planets and that the forge world of Ironfound could now be at risk. The munitions Ironfound produces are vital to the Imperial war effort in the subsector; its safety must be assured at all costs. As battle explodes across the planet, Ciaphas Cain and his regiment come up against allies and enemies old and new in their fight for victory.

Once again, reluctant hero Commissar Cain is catapulted into glory in the fourth instalment of this tremendously popular series. Escaping from a disastrous space battle, the commissar and his malodorous sidekick Jurgen crash-land behind enemy lines. Even the sly Cain can't avoid a straight fight this time, as the only way out is to round up what few troops they can find and fight their way back to safety. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of barbaric alien orks stand in their way.

Follow the exploits of Oltyx, who, having finally been granted the throne of the Ithakas Dynasty, now faces far greater threats, from within and without. He soon learns that the lessons of kingship are not quite what he had hoped.

An age ago, the Seraphon temple-ship Wings of Serendipitous Fire was blasted from the skies of Shyish. Now, Irixi Starseer, servant of the mage-priest Sek'atta, is sent to the ancient ruin of the temple-ship to recover a prophecy inscribed on its walls, a prophecy as shattered as the rest of the fallen vessel. The Stormcast Vael Scar-Helm seeks the same ruin, chasing a memory that has haunted him through many Reforgings. Simultaneously, the mage Perlo leads a group of Steelhelms to the site, pursuing rumours of a treasure beyond imagining.

For generations, the people of the Howling Vale have fought against this madness, largely in vain. Now, Kosomir Vornarov, the city’s Master Patriarch, risks everything – his reputation, friends, even his people’s survival – to destroy the flesh-eater menace entirely and forge a brighter future in his name. Two ambitious lords, two haunted souls. Whose madness will prove the stronger?

Beyond the mountain range of the Adamantine Chain, Aqshy lies destroyed. Noxious fires light up the horizon, death skitters in the smoke, and a wasteland of horror threatens the entire realm. Humanity has but a single hope: the Reclusians of the Ruination Chamber. These Stormcast Eternals, though few in number, are the only force capable of enduring the perils of this dark era, for their souls are already broken.

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a house in London, he soon discovers some strange and shocking things about his new client. And then some strange things start happening back in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby, a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival.

Deep in Imperium Nihilus, Blood Angels Chief Librarian Mephiston and his comrades are drawn into battle with a cabal of Thousand Sons sorcerers – with worlds at stake and hidden truths threatening to overwhelm him, this is Mephiston's darkest hour. Experience a battle of psychic might in the Dark Imperium and witness Mephiston taking on his greatest challenges ever, physically, mentally and emotionally.

Lieutenant Heyd Calder is a Primaris Marine whose mastery of warfare is matched only by his diplomatic prowess. Under the orders of Roboute Guilliman, he is deployed to Almace, a minor seat of the Ecclesiarchy, to protect the world at whatever cost. Yet even as diabolical forces leer from the system's edge, Calder discovers that the capital's Cardinal-Governor, a sharp, inscrutable figure of spiritual and material authority, is hiding something. When it becomes clear that conquest is not the enemy’s sole aim, Calder resolves to uncover the secret of Almace.

Once a united Legion, the disparate splinters of the Emperor’s Children now eke out a violent, hedonistic existence between the stars, raiding and ravaging worlds to indulge their fathomless appetites. Xantine, proud leader of the Adored and a true son of Fulgrim, wants more than simply pillaging backwater worlds. He soon finds what he has been searching for – Serrine, a wealthy but cruel planet festering under misrule and inequality, cut off from the Imperium by warp storms. It is too tantalising a prize to ignore, and Xantine sets out to bring perfection to his new world.

The primarch Roboute Guilliman of the Ultramarines has returned in the galaxy’s hour of need, and all muster to his Indomitus Crusade to hold back the darkness. Amongst these heroes is Cato Sicarius, Master of the Watch and vaunted captain of Second Company. Disaster befalls Sicarius and his brave warriors as their ship, the Emperor’s Will, is lost to the hellish warp, its entire crew believed slain. But Sicarius endures, though he and his men are fighting for their very survival against the denizens of the Great Rift - the daemons and renegades of Chaos.

On 7th November 1843, Harriet Monckton, 23 years old and a woman of respectable parentage and religious habits, is found murdered in the privy behind the chapel she regularly attended in Bromley, Kent. The community is appalled by her death, apparently as a result of swallowing a fatal dose of prussic acid, and even more so when the surgeon reports that Harriet was around six months pregnant. Drawing on the coroner’s reports and witness testimonies, Elizabeth Haynes builds a compelling picture of Harriet’s final hours through the eyes of those closest to her and the last people to see her alive.

Gotrek Gurnisson was once the greatest Slayer of the Old World, meeting his doom in the great cataclysms of the End Times. The heroic duardin stepped forth into the Realm of Chaos to fight the daemons gnawing at the world's ending and satisfy his death oath, leaving behind his companion Felix Jaeger. Now, he finds himself in a strange new realm where gods walk the earth and dark forces are ascendant.

The duardin are a proud folk, renowned throughout the Mortal Realms for their peerless craftsmanship and their stubbornness in battle. They are also a divided people. But whether they dwell in the stone halls of their doomed ancestors, in the furnace heat of Fyreslayer lodges, or free from the anchor of their traditions in skyborne cities, they share a common legend—that of an aged traveller, a wanderer, whose timely arrival will avert calamity and right intractable wrongs.

Take your first steps into the adrenaline-fuelled fiction of the Mortal Realms with a thrilling collection of tales, including an action-packed novella pitting noble Stormcast Eternals against the sinister denizens of Ghur. Whether you're a hardened veteran or dipping your toes into the realms for the first time, these 19 new stories introduce you to the various factions as the Age of Sigmar enters the Era of the Beast.