Читаем Dark Apostle полностью

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,