BACKLIST - Fireden

one’s only companion; minutes can malform into hours, yet hours may pass aswayward moments.How long have I been here on Terra? How long have I called this cell home?How long has my only company been the archival servitor that shares thisspace?Why do you not speak, Thoth? Because you will not, or because you cannot? Ihear the soft rhythm of your breath, so I know you are not fully automated. Yetyour quill scratches on and on, committing these words to parchment. You aremind-reaved to a state of simplicity, perhaps, mono-tasked to avoid the moralthreat I represent. Is that it?I am wasting my breath with these questions.I know what your masters want. They wish for more, always more, morerecollections and reflections of an era that was myth to their society thousands ofyears before any of them were born.I am not without pride. I am not immune to the temptation to lie, to reweavepast failures and injustices as victories for the sake of my own esteem, to say thatthe Black Legion’s rise was so inevitable, so born in righteousness, that weascended with nothing but the acclaim and awe of our brothers and cousins. Yetfor all my faults, I am not a petty soul, and there is no gain in spinning lies forImperial ears.This, then, is the truth. The Black Legion’s history is drowned with blood,much of it our own. If it was easy to despise the dying Sons of Horus for theirtreachery and weakness, it was easier by far to loathe their reincarnation for itsstrength and defiance. Put simply, we refused to die. And oh, how our brothersand cousins hated us for it. How they tore across the Eye, hunting us for the twinsins of drawing breath and seeking to fight fate.Sometimes we fought them. Often, we fled. Those were not days of pride, butnor were they days of outright defeat, for even as we fled from the vengeanceand jealousies of our kindred, there were those that sought us out with a mind tofight alongside us.Our ranks swelled, timeless night by timeless night. At first almost every recruitwas another exile, another wanderer, another disgraced or disgusted soul thatcame to us in search of a new beginning. Some wished to cleanse themselves ofthe past and stand beneath a new banner. Some wished to taste once more thepurpose of brotherhood after the endless battles within the Eye had broken theirold bonds. Some sought to deceive us. They were purged, fed to the creaturesthat writhed in the dark of the Vengeful Spirit’s deepest decks.

Soon we recruited not lone warriors or squads, but warbands and warships.Time and again, Abaddon scattered us across the Eye in divided forces, bringingword of his return to his beleaguered Legion, offering amnesty and alliance toany that wished to join with us. Most of our new loyal brethren were thesurvivors of the shattered Sons of Horus. They came for one reason above all:survival. A dying Legion on the edge of extinction was suddenly presented withthree of the most iconic symbols of its former strength. The Legion Wars ragedon, yet here was Ezekyle Abaddon, here was Falkus Kibre and here was theVengeful Spirit. Such an echo of their bright past was surely their greatest chanceof survival in a realm that still hungered for their blood.Exiles and idealists from every Legion joined us. Vortigern brought his solemnand wayward Lost Lion warband into our ranks. Amurael Enka came next – abrother who has had every chance to betray me across an eternity and yet neveronce wavered in his loyalty. Then Chariz Terenoch, the Wonderworker, whoforged the blade I carried after the destruction of my axe Saern. He was the firstof my former brothers among the Thousand Sons to surrender his Rubricae tomy mastery.Then came Zaidu and his vile cannibals, who inevitably fell into Telemachon’sfavour, followed by Delvarus and his brutal Secondborn, once Legion brothers toLheor and formerly the guardians of the great warship Conqueror, flagship of theWorld Eaters.None of our foes could overwhelm the Vengeful Spirit head on. Nor wasEzekyle content to exist for survival’s sake and let only stragglers and exilesswear oaths of fealty. He wanted more. He wanted a Legion. Not one of theeighteen Legions of the Great Crusade; his vision was set higher, fou nded in theprinciples of rebirth. He wanted the first and only Legion of the Long War.As tribal conquerors have done since the ages of antiquity, we offered our foesa choice: serve us or be destroyed. Those that chose to swear allegiance toAbaddon were permitted to join our fleet or garrison our strongholds, with someof those humbled warlords even joining Ezekyle’s inner circle. Few chosedestruction, though true to our word, we let none survive once they had chosendefiance.Through blood and fire we raised ourselves to a place of, if not pride, then atleast less dire shame. We commanded a fleet. We were the lords of thousands ofwarriors, each one sharing our ambitions to be more than we had been. Thoughwe were still hunted by our rivals – and none pursued us more bitterly than thelast living Sons of Horus who spat at us for corrupting their legacy – we no

longer lived with the blade of extinction against our throats.Abaddon’s aggression bordered upon obsession, almost into the realm ofmadness. He committed us to battle after battle, not only to crush those thatoffered defiance but also to come to the aid of beleaguered warbands that hadsworn oaths of alliance. The Sons of Horus suffered worst of all, still plagued asthey were by the shame of their defeat at Terra. Many were the times we torethrough the formations of predator fleets hunting Sons of Horus warbands,fighting them back long enough for their prey to either flee or to stand with usagainst their attackers.There was precious little luck to this. Abaddon courted the services and loyaltyof sorcerers and seers above almost any other recruits. Ashur-Kai, called for solong the White Seer and now navigator of the Vengeful Spirit, found himself in aposition of incomparable value. Nor was he alone – a coven of prophets andoracles formed, and when Abaddon’s seers whispered, he took heed of everyword.And it worked. Ezekyle Abaddon, who had been First Captain of the XVILegion and a renowned hero of the Imperium, became a champion to the Sons ofHorus. Unprecedented numbers of them abandoned the green ceramite of theirold Legion and adopted the colourless distinction of our nameless warband,fighting again beneath his banner. First for survival, and then, as we all believed,for something more.That most potent and pure of motivations.Revenge. Vengeance bought at any price.I, too, had changed. I no longer suffered the nightmares of wolves. Thesomnolent reflections of my burning world had receded, and with them faded thehelpless hatred that had tasted a little too much like fear. Memories of greywarriors no longer howled through my mind, just as Gyre no longer walked bymy side or guarded my slumbering form. Gone was the Fenrisian axe I carriedinto battle. Gone too was my armour of cobalt and polished bronze. Theceramite I wore was colourless, edged in dull metal.I was remade. No longer a soldier of the Great Crusade or a heretic of a failedrebellion, I was a warrior of the Long War – as I have been every day since, as Iwill be until my final breath. Perhaps that last gasp of life will be within thisvery cell and it shall taste of this stagnant air. I don’t know.This is what I do know.I am he who tells of the rage of angels. I am the emissary that speaks theblasphemies of a false god’s exiled sons.

I am Iskandar Khayon, called Khayon the Black, Breaker of the Crimson King,Raider of Graves, Lord of the Ashen Dead, Third of the Ezekarion, LordVigilator of the Black Legion. I am the judge of my brothers’ sins and the takerof traitors’ heads. I am what my brother needed me to become – now, as ever, Iam his blade at the throats of his foes. I am a blinded, tortured prisoner inInquisitorial shackles. I am the Herald of the Crimson Path.The seeds of our conquest were born in the fallow ground of Abaddon’s ownambition, but we cannot ignore the whips that cracked against his back. Let usspeak, then, of Moriana and Thagus Daravek.Daravek, the battle-king and Lord of Hosts, remains my greatest failure. Fewothers have come as close to killing our dreams of vengeance as Thagus of theDeath Guard, at the head of his armada.And as for Moriana Look for that name in your own ancient records,inquisitors. You will find her there, secreted within the deepest shadows.Doubtless her presence spread the same poison among your roots that it spreadamong ours.Let this archive chronicle the beginning of what the Imperium now calls theFirst Black Crusade. I will tell you of the roots of the war and the first bloodybattle when at last we broke free of our warp-wrought prison, when an ancientknight-king fell into darkness and when my brother sought to claim the swordfated to end an empire.I swear to you on whatever tattered scraps remain of my soul, every word onthese pages is true.

From shame and shadow recast.In black and gold reborn.

‘ Daravek Thagus Daravek he bled us he butchered us even Ezekyle didn’tknow the threat we couldn’t have known it is Khayon’s fault Khayon is toblame my brother Khayon he could not do it he could not do as he wasordered Khayon was blind he could not see the traceries of fate and hewould not believe ’– from ‘The Infinity Canticle’, sequestered by the holy orderof His Imperial Majesty’s Inquisition as an Ultima-grademoral threat. Purported to be the unedited, raving confessionof Sargon Eregesh, Lord-Prelate of the Black Legion.

WEAPONS‘Khayon, I know you’re here. I can smell your mongrel stink.’Daravek’s voice was a rusted hacksaw, a thing of flaky corrosion and rottingedges. ‘Show yourself. Let us finish this.’He was talking a great deal, almost always a sign of desperation in a warrior. Idared to think that control of the situation was slipping through his fingers, andchallenging me like this was the only way he could try to reassert his dominance.Around us, above us, sirens were crying out their warnings. They had beendoing so for several minutes. In Daravek’s defence, he had done very well to lastthis long.But I had him. At last, I had him. Tonight I would bring his bones to my lordAbaddon.Thagus Daravek was an immense, bloated monster, swollen by the favour of hispatron Gods. Wet filth crusted the overlapping plates of his battle armour,sealing the seams with undefined bio mechanical vileness. The ceramite aroundhis torso and one of his legs was warped with diseased swelling and fusion of theflesh within, and horns of bronze thrust through punctures in the mangledarmour. The bronze spines were veined, somehow alive, and bleeding vascularpromethium. The vulture’s wings that rose in ragged majesty from his shoulderblades were spindly, trembling things despite their size, the feathers and tatteredbones burning in heatless waves of warpfire. Ghosts, or things that looked likeghosts, reached out from those flames.‘He is here,’ Daravek said, deep and low, as he paced. His jaundiced eyesdrifted from warrior to warrior among his elite guard. Blood decorated his facefrom the slaughter so far. It bubbled, slowly dissolving on the active blade of hisaxe. ‘I know he is here, riding within your bones. Which one of you was weakenough to fall to the mongrel magician?’Even as I clenched my consciousness away from the risk of discovery, even as Idissolved my essence thinner than mist and threaded it through the blood of my

host body, I felt a stab of irritation at the word ‘magician’, uttered in Gothicheavily accented by life in the highlands of Barbarus.But now was not the time to amend the warlord’s ignorance.‘Was it you, Symeos?’ he asked one of his warriors. The metal chamber shookaround us. Statues to incarnations of the Undying God and the Shifting Manytrembled, given shivering life by the assault on the fortress. Symeos tilted hishelmed head, bearing his throat before his master’s blade.‘Never in life, Lord Daravek.’Daravek levelled his axe at another of his closest brethren. Some of themshared the same traits as their liege lord – the warped bloating of preternaturaldisease, the encrusted corruption of once pristine battleplate. This one did not; hewas cadaverous in a drier, more ghoulish sense. There was something parchedabout him, something that spoke of undesecrated tombs beneath the earth,decorated with the untouched dust of centuries.‘Ilyaster?’ Daravek asked. ‘Was it you, brother?’‘No, my lord,’ Ilyaster said with the ugly rasp that served as his voice. He wasunhelmed, and the words were a carrion-scented breath through blackened teeth.Daravek swayed to the next warrior. To me. His eyes met mine, his toxicrespiration caressing my face. ‘Tychondrian,’ he said. ‘You, brother?’I was also unhelmed. I snarled through jaws that could barely close due to thelength of my uneven fangs.‘No, lord.’The fortress gave another titanic shudder around us. Daravek turned away,laughing, truly laughing. ‘You could all be lying, you worthless wretches.Nevertheless, the day is far from done. We must get into orbit. We will go whereAbaddon’s mongrel cannot pursue.’I was instrumental in the birth of the Black Legion, yet the truth is that I wasabsent for many of the battles that formed its genesis. While my brothers wagedwar and fought to survive, I worked in an isolation that bordered upon exile. Icannot say that I never resented Abaddon for this, but I have always understoodit. We each play the part to which we are best suited, and he did not need anothergeneral, or yet another warrior. He needed an assassin.This is not a rare role for souls of great psychic strength among the NineLegions. We possess talents and masteries that make murder something of aspecialty. In a realm where deception and assassination are plagued by a millionunnatural considerations – where stealth and a sniper rifle are next to useless;

where physical laws scarcely apply; where every single foe is preternaturallyresistant to venom and poison – those with the power to remake reality make thefinest murderers.Use of the Art, manipulating the matter of souls, allows one to bypass suchlimitations. A warrior who may never best his brothers with a blade can binddaemons to his will. The same warrior, who may be mediocre with a boltgun andbear no awards for either valour or mastery, can rewrite the minds of his foes tohis own wishes. A marksman that has learned every scrap of intelligence abouthis target may try to predict his foe’s actions, but a sorcerer that has seen into hisenemy’s soul knows every iota of lore without needing to resort to crudeguesswork. And if you give credence to such things, the sorcerer may havewalked the paths of fate and seen a host of possible, probable futures, and canmanipulate events to bring about the most desired ends.Yet if I am making this sound easy, I am doing a disservice to the slayer’s craft.Most of these undertakings are monumental. Many are impossible without acoven of allies and apprentices, both of which I have used in abundance acrossthe millennia. Sometimes, however, I work alone, and those sorcerers capable ofsuch feats must be psykers of immense strength. I do not say this lightly. Myreputation among the Nine Legions has been hard earned, and there are preciousfew sorcerers able to match me in might. Most of those that can tend to wastetheir talents in the unreliable impracticalities of precognition and prophecy. Atragic waste. Some say the best blades are those that are never drawn, and thereis wisdom in such a philosophy. But power must be wielded, tested and trained,lest it wither on the vine.You have heard me speak of Ahriman before. I know you know his name, fromhis many predations upon the Imperium. My brother, my naïve but mostadmirably honest brother, Ahzek Ahriman once told me that he alone among theNine Legions stood above me in talent with the Art. It was typical of his habitfor blending humility with arrogance, to say nothing of manipulation.I cannot speak for the veracity of his words. In the long years of my life, whilealmost all of my sorcerous rivals lie dead, a few of them came close to killingme. There are others whom I would never wish to face, and still others that carryreputations equal to, or greater than, mine.In our Legion’s early years, I played my part as expected. My new duties forAbaddon required a breathtaking amount of preparation, and I adhered to theserequirements with unfailing focus.I was never swift in my work. I was, however, very thorough. When Abaddon

needed haste, he sent warriors or warships to do his will. When he neededprecision, when he wanted a point made or a lesson learned, he sent me.When Abaddon first told me he required Daravek dead, I knew not to expectany deep conversational insight as to how he wished me to achieve his goal. Itwas always my place to study the target, to ascertain the consequences of variousmethods of death and to bring about a result most favourable to our emergingarmies and the warrior-monarch that led us.Abaddon expects results. Any one of the Ezekarion requiring the painstakingforce-feeding of information, unable or unwilling to compose battle plans in hisown right, would be discarded or destroyed as useless. The same stands for thechieftains, sub commanders and champions that fill the officer ranks beneath us.This serves a twofold purpose. First, although he leads the Black Legion’sgreatest battles and oversees our function, in this manner Abaddon forces hisranking officers and elite bodyguards to constantly adapt and act on their owninitiative.The second purpose, no less vital, is one of trust. By this delegation his closestbrothers know they carry his trust. The rest of the Legion, and the entirety of theEye itself, knows this as well. The Ezekarion speaks with Abaddon’s voice. Eachone of us wields his authority. You cannot overstate the exultant effect this hason morale.It was my duty as Abaddon’s silent blade that brought me to the fortress ofThagus Daravek, Warlord of This, Master of That, Butcher of Them and a dozenother titles that I refuse to consign to parchment even all these millennia later.One of them mattered more than the others, and that is the one I shall use: theself-styled Lord of Hosts.He challenged us at every turn, a warlord who wanted to rival Abaddon, andthus he was sentenced to death. Our emissaries to other warlords would arriveonly to find that oaths had already been sworn to Daravek. Our fleets wouldtranslate into a system only to sail into one of Daravek’s many ambushes.We of the Ezekarion, and the armies we commanded, had been bleeding theLegions for some time, carving them apart as we fought for our right to exist.None retaliated with the same ferocity as the Death Guard, and no warlord wasas wilful, or as dangerous, as Daravek, the so-called Lord of Hosts. The title fit.On more than one occasion he had gathered fleets comprised of warbands fromseveral Legions, tasked with the purpose of resisting our rise. Yet always heavoided direct conflict with Abaddon. Always he remained one step ahead of us,refusing to come within range of the Vengeful Spirit’s guns.

For every victory we earned through the running blood of his warriors, he stoleone back in kind. He had to die.I was Abaddon’s instrument. It took months of watching, waiting, hiding andscrying to locate his sanctuary world, and I was blessed with fortune as well.Traitors within his ranks stood ready to work with me. I could not fail. I wouldnot fail. Not this time.Darav

Eldar huntress, Trueborn of Commorragh. Bloodward to Iskandar Khayon. SARGON EREGESH Black Legion warrior, born of Colchis. Prelate of the Long War. Second of the Ezekarion. SARONOS Warp Ghosts warrior of unknown origins. Captain of the warship Tartaran Wraith. TELEMACHON LYRAS, ‘THE MASQUED PRINCE’ Black Legion warrior, born of Chemos.