Lorenzo had been in the thick of a space battle once. He wished the ship had windows, so he could face his enemy and, perhaps, begin to understand it as the Navigators did. Still, Lorenzo wished he could take that chance.
They said it would drive a normal man insane. They said no one but the Navigators could look into the warp. Only the warp itself to worry about, and the possibility that it might capriciously tear the ship and its occupants apart - and there was nothing he could do about that if it happened. No predators to sneak up on him as he slept, unguarded. No enemies of the Imperium lurked in the shadows. In the jungle, it could mean the difference between life and death. He was tired, but he knew he wouldn't sleep again now. But the warp itself distorted space and time, and that played hell with Lorenzo's instincts - and his body clock. Out there, beyond the adamantium shell of the ship that carried him, there was nothing.
All the same, he had slept for almost five hours. He could feel the beginnings of a stiff neck. And beyond those walls… Lorenzo's bed was undisturbed: he preferred the floor, though even this was too flat for his liking. He turned on the light, suppressing a prickling, creeping feeling as he realised again just how close the walls of his basic cabin were. He crouched in silence, in the dark, ready to drive half a metre of Catachan steel into the heart of any man or beast that thought it could sneak up on him. He rolled to his feet, simultaneously drawing his fang. 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.ĬHAPTER ONE As SOON AS he woke, Trooper Lorenzo knew there was something wrong. 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. 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. 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. With thanks and praise to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for creating the universe!
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