Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor's Legion

259 Pages·2017·1.98 MB·English

by  Chris Wraight

BACKLIST
More Warhammer 40,000 stories from Black Library
The Beast Arises
1: I AM SLAUGHTER
2: PREDATOR, PREY
3: THE EMPEROR EXPECTS
4: THE LAST WALL
5: THRONEWORLD
6: ECHOES OF THE LONG WAR
7: THE HUNT FOR VULKAN
8: THE BEAST MUST DIE
9: WATCHERS IN DEATH
10: THE LAST SON OF DORN
11: SHADOW OF ULLANOR
12: THE BEHEADING
Space Marine Battles
WAR OF THE FANG
A Space Marine Battles book, containing the novella The Hunt for
Magnus and the novel Battle of the Fang
THE WORLD ENGINE
An Astral Knights novel
DAMNOS
An Ultramarines collection
DAMOCLES
Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Ultramarines novellas
Blood Oath, Broken Sword, Black Leviathan and Hunter’s Snare
OVERFIEND
Contains the White Scars, Raven Guard and Salamanders novellas
Stormseer, Shadow Captain and Forge Master
ARMAGEDDON
Contains the Black Templars novel Helsreach and novella Blood and
Fire
Legends of the Dark Millennium
ASTRA MILITARUM
An Astra Militarum collection
ULTRAMARINES
An Ultramarines collection
FARSIGHT
A Tau Empire novella
SONS OF CORAX
A Raven Guard collection
SPACE WOLVES
A Space Wolves collection
Visit blacklibrary.com for the full range of novels, novellas, audio
dramas and Quick Reads, along with many other exclusive products
CONTENTS
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer 40,000
Tieron
Valerian
Aleya
Tieron
Valerian
Aleya
Tieron
Valerian
Aleya
Tieron
Valerian
Aleya
Tieron
Valerian
Aleya
Tieron
Valerian
Aleya
Valerian
Aleya
Tieron
Valerian
Tieron
Valerian
Aleya
Tieron
Valerian
Aleya
Tieron
About the Author
An Extract from ‘The Horusian Wars: Resurrection’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license

WARHAMMER 40,000
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 Emperor’s 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
Astra Militarum 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.
Huge thanks to Nick Kyme, Aaron Dembski-Bowden and John French for
their invaluable help in planning this story.
TIERON
I have considered it. Making an end to it all. Of course I have. I looked to the
skies. I saw good souls succumb to weakness, and foul souls seize their moment.
What of it?
We all doubt.
I have lived over two hundred standard years. Too long, I think now. I have
buried two wives, and seen seven children enter service and leave me for the
void, and still I remain here, old, stubborn, in irritatingly good health despite an
atmosphere of toxins both natural and political.
I am alone again now. Strange to say that, surrounded as I am by the
quadrillions of the Throneworld, and yet it is truer now than it has ever been.
The faces pass me by. I know all of them. I know their histories and their
allegiances. I see the plots they hatch and hear the whispers they make under
gilded archways, and I grow numb to it all, for it matters so little. Even now,
hard against the End of Time, when the death rattle of our species has become
audible even to the thick-eared, they still grasp for a little more of the things we
have always desired – coin, power, know​ledge, gratification.
We are yet animals, at heart. Nothing has changed that. Not even He could
change us really, though I think He wanted to once. I like to believe that we must
be a disappointment to Him. If we are not, then His ambitions for us must have
been so very poor, and that strikes at all I believe and hold dear.
I am Alexei Lev Tieron, and I was a supremely powerful man. I was not a
warrior, nor was I a witch, nor was I a commander of great vessels. My power
came only from the Lex Imperialis – a cold source, but an ancient one. Like so