Difference between revisions of "Horus Rising (Novel)"
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As the Crusade rolls on through the sector, a distress call is received from the [[Blood Angels]]' force on [[One-Forty Twenty]], the planet grimly dubbed "[[Murder]]" by the last transmission of Captain [[Khitas Frome]], before contact with the Angels' force stopped altogether. Both the 63rd Expedition Fleet under Horus and a task force from the [[Emperor's Children]] respond. The latter arrives first, and its leader, [[Lord Commander]] [[Eidolon]], refuses to wait and orders his Space Marines to drop immediately. | As the Crusade rolls on through the sector, a distress call is received from the [[Blood Angels]]' force on [[One-Forty Twenty]], the planet grimly dubbed "[[Murder]]" by the last transmission of Captain [[Khitas Frome]], before contact with the Angels' force stopped altogether. Both the 63rd Expedition Fleet under Horus and a task force from the [[Emperor's Children]] respond. The latter arrives first, and its leader, [[Lord Commander]] [[Eidolon]], refuses to wait and orders his Space Marines to drop immediately. | ||
− | Soon, two companies of the Emperor's Children, commanded by Captains [[Saul Tarvitz]] and [[Lucius (Emperor's Children)|Lucius]] are fighting for their lives against the [[Megarachnid]]s, the planet's insectile inhabitants. Electromagnetic storms have scattered the Space Marines all over the planet and | + | Soon, two companies of the Emperor's Children, commanded by Captains [[Saul Tarvitz]] and [[Lucius (Emperor's Children)|Lucius]] are fighting for their lives against the [[Megarachnid]]s, the planet's insectile inhabitants. Electromagnetic storms have scattered the Space Marines all over the planet and are blocking [[vox]] communication, making it virtually impossible for them to coordinate their forces. |
+ | |||
+ | While the 63rd Fleet is en route to Murder, Loken must deal with several disturbing revelations. Going through Sgt. Jubal's meagre possessions after his death, he finds a medallion showing Jubal's membership in the secret [[Warrior Lodges]] that have spread through several of the Legions. Loken forbade his own men to have anything to do with them, and is furious to find out that not only Jubal, but his own trusted second, [[Nero Vipus]], are members. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Aximand placates Loken by bringing him as a guest to one of the lodge meetings aboard the ''Vengeful Spirit''. Loken is surprised to find that Torgaddon is also a member. Observing the meeting, Loken sees no heathen rituals or seditious plotting; Torgaddon explains that the lodge is simply a place where the men of the Legion can gather as equals and speak their minds, without regards to rank or unit; they may be [[Astartes]], but fraternity is one very [[human]] need that their creators did not breed out of them. Torgaddon and Aximand believe that, if anything, the lodges strengthen the Legion, creating bonds of loyalty between men from different [[companies]] that might not otherwise exist. Loken is somewhat assuaged, but still has his doubts; the lodges may be benevolent, but they are still secret, and secrecy is anathema to a military organization. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Loken finds Kyril Sindermann obsessively browsing the ship's data library for any reading material related to "[[Daemons]]." The iterator, a much reduced man since the events on 63-19, confesses that he has had difficulty focusing on the Imperial Truth he is supposed to be spreading. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Mersadie Oliton asks Loken to sponsor Ignace Karkasy's work, saying that he is a first-rate poet (though less than a perfect human being), and that he tells the unvarnished truth. Loken respects this, even if that truth is unpalatable. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Loken is also troubled by an encounter with Euphrati Keeler, who has taken to drinking heavily and sleeping indiscriminately with soldiers aboard the ship. When Loken goes to her quarters to comfort her, she shows him images from her picter. She was given the "official" explanation that some kind of wild beast got loose in the rebel stronghold, but her images show the truth: a [[daemon]] wearing fragments of Astartes [[power armour]]. For a moment Loken is afraid that his orders from Abaddon and Horus will force him to silence her, but to his surprise she gives him the picter and promises to say nothing, trusting that he will do the right thing with them. After he is gone, she opens a shrine hidden in her cabinet and prays to the [[Emperor]] as a [[Lectitio Divinitatus|deity]]. | ||
+ | |||
+ | On Murder, chance has allowed the Emperor's Children to regain the initiative. The Megarachnids had been impaling the bodies of slain Astartes to the enormous, stone-like "trees" growing all over the planet. Saul Tarvitz insisted on taking the corpses down and destroying the trees, which Eidolon decried as a waste of good explosives. Yet when the trees came down, the electromagnetic storms and vox distortion begin to clear. By the time the Luna Wolves' relief force arrives via [[Drop Pod]], spearheaded by Torgaddon's company, destroying the trees has become standard procedure. Torgaddon is not impressed by Eidolon's ingratitude, nor by Lucius's loftiness, but quickly forms a bond of kinship with Tarvitz. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The war on Murder lasts for several months, accelerated by the arrival of a relief force from the [[Blood Angels]], led by [[Sanguinius]] in person. Horus is overjoyed to see one of his most beloved brothers again, and both lead the war with gusto. But near the end of the war, with the Megarachnids all but exterminated, a strange alien fleet arrives at the planet, transmitting a music-like language. When translated, the message identifies the newcomers as a [[human]] civilisation called the [[Interex]], criticizing the Imperial forces for ignoring their warnings. | ||
=== Part Three: The Dreadful Sagittary === | === Part Three: The Dreadful Sagittary === |
Revision as of 22:36, 31 December 2012
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Horus Rising, written by Dan Abnett, is the first novel in the Horus Heresy series. It also forms the first part of a narrative trilogy, along with False Gods by Graham McNeill and Galaxy in Flames by Ben Counter, focusing directly on Horus's fall to Chaos.
Horus Rising was first published in April 2006, and as of July 2006 is in its third print run. An anniversary edition was released in April 2011[1]. Each print run has a different colour for the titles: First was gold, Second was silver, Third was bronze, and the anniversary edition was platinum[1]. In 2012, a hardcover edition that included several internal illustrations was published[2].
Contents
Plot Summary
Part One: The Deceived
It is the two hundred and third year of the Great Crusade, and Horus, the primarch of the Luna Wolves Legio Astartes, has been Warmaster for barely a year, after the Emperor of Mankind retired from the Crusade and returned to Terra.
Under Horus, the 63rd Expedition Fleet's first major engagement since his elevation to Warmaster is the pacification of the planet Sixty-Three-Nineteen, a human civilization whose sovereign identifies himself as "The Emperor of Mankind". For daring to suggest the existence of "another" Emperor, Horus's envoy, Captain Hastur Sejanus, is murdered by the "Emperor"'s bodyguards, the so-called "Invisibles". There is nothing for it but to make war.
The four Companies, chosen at random to spearhead the assault on the Emperor's palace, are led by Captains Abaddon, Torgaddon, Aximand, and Loken. They are victorious when Horus arrives in person and slays the "false" Emperor.
One of the changes introduced by the newly-formed Council of Terra is to send remembrancers - historians, poets, artists, and pictmakers - to accompany the Expedition Fleets and document the glories of the Crusade. One of them assigned to the Sixty-Third, Mersadie Oliton, develops a rapport with Captain Loken and becomes something of a confidante to him.
Garviel Loken is surprised when Abaddon, Torgaddon, and Aximand invite him to replace Sejanus as the fourth member of the Mournival, an informal council of advisors to the Warmaster. In private, he consults with his mentor, Iterator Kyril Sindermann, and confesses his doubts about the morality of the war on Sixty-Three Nineteen, and his own fitness for the post. Sindermann tells him this humanity is exactly why the Mournival needs him.
While touring the recently-conquered capital city, another remembrancer, poet Ignace Karkasy, finds inspiration in seeing the ruins of the planet's older civilization. His verses flow freely, but under the influence of alcohol, they become increasingly morbid and defeatist. Soon he is declaiming aloud that what they have done to Sixty-Three Nineteen, under the pretense of enlightenment, is simple, naked conquest, and how all empires, even the mighty Imperium, are destined to collapse, and he is beaten nearly to death by an enraged squad of the Imperial Army that happens to overhear him.
Loken's first experience of his place in the Mournival is not only to advise the Warmaster, but to play his part in a political show orchestrated by Horus and his equerry, Maloghurst. A final pocket of resistance on Sixty-Three-Nineteen remains in the Whisperhead Mountains. The Imperial Army has been unable to crack the rebel stronghold. Loken volunteers the 10th Company to finish the war, and Horus agrees. In private, Rogal Dorn, the primarch of the Imperial Fists, who is in council with Horus before his Legion's withdrawal to Terra, takes Loken aside and confides that he also recommended Loken for the place on the Mournival; his humanity is a necessary counter to Abaddon's bellicosity and Aximand's "lofty disdain." But at the same time, the Mournival has a part to play: Horus wanted to unleash the Luna Wolves on the rebels, but wanted someone else to be the one to suggest it.
During their approach to the mountain stronghold, the 10th Company and the accompanying units of the Imperial Army hear strange whispers: "Samus. That's the only name you'll hear. I'm Samus. Samus is all around you. Samus is the man beside you. Samus will gnaw upon your bones". Loken dismisses it as vox distortion, or a useless scare-tactic by the rebels.
With an assault spearheaded by a squad in the recently-issued Terminator armour, the Luna Wolves crack the rebel stronghold with little effort. But at the conclusion of the battle, Loken is contacted by one of his Sergeants, Xavyer Jubal, claiming he sees Samus. Confused, Loken confronts Jubal in a cave inside the stronghold, talking nonsense. With a smile, Jubal raises his bolter and guns down the marines accompanying Loken, crowing, "Samus is here!" He then attacks Loken, who is forced to kill him.
Meanwhile, a small group of remembrancers has finally been allowed to accompany an Astartes expedition on a combat mission, though they have been kept well away from the actual fighting. Loken calls for Sindermann, desperately seeking an explanation for Jubal's behavior. Sindermann theorizes that Jubal was afflicted by some kind of disease which caused him to become delusional; in his delusion, he started repeating the nonsense words broadcast by the rebels. To Loken, this makes much more sense than Jubal claiming to be a daemon... then Jubal rises up with another smile, and his body bloats, becoming monstrous and grotesque, snapping out of his armour.
Unknown to Loken, the remembrancers, led by Euphrati Keeler, have decided to give their Army escort the slip and view the carnage at the stronghold for themselves. When the daemon charges out of the shadows, it kills two of them, and is about to kill Keeler, when Loken intervenes and finally kills the daemon.
Afterwards, Abaddon debriefs Loken in secret, warning him to keep silent about the events in the Whisperheads. Then Horus arrives in person, ordering his "son" not to reproach himself: placed in an unthinkable situation, Loken fought back and won, and his commander is very proud of him. To ease Loken's mind, Horus confides his understanding of what happened: Jubal was possessed by an entity of the Warp - they may be called daemons, but in reality they are xenos like any other, just more insidious. Loken is disbelieving, since they are all taught that only psykers, such as Librarians, are vulnerable to warp-entities, but Horus explains that there are places in the galaxy - the Whisperheads are apparently one of them - where the barrier between the Materium and the warp are unusually thin. Part of the reason Horus became Warmaster, he confides, is because the Emperor has withdrawn from the Crusade in an attempt to master the warp; if He fails, then all that the Crusade has accomplished will be for naught.
Part Two: Brotherhood in Spiderland
As the Crusade rolls on through the sector, a distress call is received from the Blood Angels' force on One-Forty Twenty, the planet grimly dubbed "Murder" by the last transmission of Captain Khitas Frome, before contact with the Angels' force stopped altogether. Both the 63rd Expedition Fleet under Horus and a task force from the Emperor's Children respond. The latter arrives first, and its leader, Lord Commander Eidolon, refuses to wait and orders his Space Marines to drop immediately.
Soon, two companies of the Emperor's Children, commanded by Captains Saul Tarvitz and Lucius are fighting for their lives against the Megarachnids, the planet's insectile inhabitants. Electromagnetic storms have scattered the Space Marines all over the planet and are blocking vox communication, making it virtually impossible for them to coordinate their forces.
While the 63rd Fleet is en route to Murder, Loken must deal with several disturbing revelations. Going through Sgt. Jubal's meagre possessions after his death, he finds a medallion showing Jubal's membership in the secret Warrior Lodges that have spread through several of the Legions. Loken forbade his own men to have anything to do with them, and is furious to find out that not only Jubal, but his own trusted second, Nero Vipus, are members.
Aximand placates Loken by bringing him as a guest to one of the lodge meetings aboard the Vengeful Spirit. Loken is surprised to find that Torgaddon is also a member. Observing the meeting, Loken sees no heathen rituals or seditious plotting; Torgaddon explains that the lodge is simply a place where the men of the Legion can gather as equals and speak their minds, without regards to rank or unit; they may be Astartes, but fraternity is one very human need that their creators did not breed out of them. Torgaddon and Aximand believe that, if anything, the lodges strengthen the Legion, creating bonds of loyalty between men from different companies that might not otherwise exist. Loken is somewhat assuaged, but still has his doubts; the lodges may be benevolent, but they are still secret, and secrecy is anathema to a military organization.
Loken finds Kyril Sindermann obsessively browsing the ship's data library for any reading material related to "Daemons." The iterator, a much reduced man since the events on 63-19, confesses that he has had difficulty focusing on the Imperial Truth he is supposed to be spreading.
Mersadie Oliton asks Loken to sponsor Ignace Karkasy's work, saying that he is a first-rate poet (though less than a perfect human being), and that he tells the unvarnished truth. Loken respects this, even if that truth is unpalatable.
Loken is also troubled by an encounter with Euphrati Keeler, who has taken to drinking heavily and sleeping indiscriminately with soldiers aboard the ship. When Loken goes to her quarters to comfort her, she shows him images from her picter. She was given the "official" explanation that some kind of wild beast got loose in the rebel stronghold, but her images show the truth: a daemon wearing fragments of Astartes power armour. For a moment Loken is afraid that his orders from Abaddon and Horus will force him to silence her, but to his surprise she gives him the picter and promises to say nothing, trusting that he will do the right thing with them. After he is gone, she opens a shrine hidden in her cabinet and prays to the Emperor as a deity.
On Murder, chance has allowed the Emperor's Children to regain the initiative. The Megarachnids had been impaling the bodies of slain Astartes to the enormous, stone-like "trees" growing all over the planet. Saul Tarvitz insisted on taking the corpses down and destroying the trees, which Eidolon decried as a waste of good explosives. Yet when the trees came down, the electromagnetic storms and vox distortion begin to clear. By the time the Luna Wolves' relief force arrives via Drop Pod, spearheaded by Torgaddon's company, destroying the trees has become standard procedure. Torgaddon is not impressed by Eidolon's ingratitude, nor by Lucius's loftiness, but quickly forms a bond of kinship with Tarvitz.
The war on Murder lasts for several months, accelerated by the arrival of a relief force from the Blood Angels, led by Sanguinius in person. Horus is overjoyed to see one of his most beloved brothers again, and both lead the war with gusto. But near the end of the war, with the Megarachnids all but exterminated, a strange alien fleet arrives at the planet, transmitting a music-like language. When translated, the message identifies the newcomers as a human civilisation called the Interex, criticizing the Imperial forces for ignoring their warnings.
Part Three: The Dreadful Sagittary
Meanwhile the fleet tries to decrypt a strange signal that is broadcasted around Murder. Finally, the Interex make contact with the fleet, reprimanding them for disturbing the captive Megarachnids and not heading to the broadcast around the planet. They however inviting Horus to open diplomatic negotiations for peaceful co-existence. The Warmaster is pleased to accept their terms. First Captain Abaddon does not agree and argues that they should wage war on them for not accepting the light of the Emperor but Horus made up his mind and starts diplomatic relations with the Interex. During a diplomatic meeting where Garviel Loken acts as a bodyguard for Horus, the Interex accuse Horus of the theft of a treasured anathame sword and attack the diplomatic party. This sparks a brutal battle between the Interex and the Imperium even though Horus claims not to know anything of the theft.
Eventually it is revealed that Chaplain Erebus of the Word Bearers committed the theft without the knowledge of the Warmaster and intends to use the weapon for some secretive plot in the near future.
Notable Characters
- Horus - Primarch of the Luna Wolves, Warmaster of the Great Crusade
- Rogal Dorn - Primarch of the Imperial Fists
- Sanguinius - Primarch of the Blood Angels
- Maloghurst - Equerry to the Warmaster
- Ezekyle Abaddon - First Captain
- Tarik Torgaddon - Captain, 2nd Company
- Iacton "the Half-heard" Qruze - Captain, 3rd Company
- " Little Horus" Aximand - Captain, 5th Company
- Garviel Loken - Captain, 10th Company
- Eidolon - Lord Commander
- Saul Tarvitz - Captain of the 10th Company
- Lucius - Captain of the 13th Company
- Hektor Varvarus - Lord Commander
- Regulus - Representative to the 63rd Expedition
- Kyril Sindermann - Primary Iterator
- Ignace Karkasy - Poet
- Euphrati Keeler - Imagist
- Mersadie Oliton - Documentarist
Related Publications
Sources
- 1: Black Library's Horus Rising Page
- 2: Black Library's Horus Rising Hardback page (site accessed 2012/11/14)