Wight – Corpse ghost

  Wulfhalle – Wolf Hall – The Great Wolf’s personal chambers

  Wurgen – Battle cant

  Wyrd- – Of Fate – Or magic or the warp

  -flesh – Daemonic or mutant remains

  -fulk – Daemons

  -fir – Warpflame

  -glimr – A warp glow

  -halle – Hall – House

  -hex – A magical curse

  -jarl – A mid-level psyker

  -kine – Mutant

  -knak – A warp-born ability – Intuition

  -leif – Sigils or runes

  -lit – Emanating power of the warp

  -lode – A source of warp power

  -lore – Knowledge of the warp – Psychic mastery

  -midons – Mermaid / siren-like creatures – Tempters

  -rot – Flesh made toxic by mutation

  -sense – Awareness / detection

  -shrum – A psychedelic fungus native to Fenris

  -skaldr – A mystic chant

  -stok – Residual power after a warp breach – Power of mutation

  -storm – Psychic attack

  -thegn – A high-level psyker

  -ward – Psychic protection – A rune of the same

  Wyrm – Dragon

  Ygdras – Tree-giant

  Ymir – Earth – The Rune of Earth

  TERMS AND EXPRESSIONS

  Blood of Russ – Expression of anger

  For Russ – Battle cry

  For the Allfather – Battle cry

  For the Wolftime – Battle cry

  God-marked – Psyker

  Hand of Russ – Expression of protection – Used as a farewell

  Morkai’s Teeth – Expression of surprise – Usually in face of imminent danger

  Teeth of Russ – Expression of frustration

  Until next winter – Farewell to the dead – Also used in face of certain death

  Ward of Russ – Expression of protection – Also used as an expression of amazement

  Accounting – Telling someone’s saga – Usually told by a skjald

  Bad Star – Ill omen

  Morkai – The Death Wolf – One of the twelve Wolves of Fenrisian legend

  Murder-make – The act of fighting – Also meaning a battle depending on usage – Also: Murder-time

  Red snow – Killing - to shed blood on snow

  The Aett – Clan-home – It is the name the Chapter has for the Fang

  The Fang – It is the name the Imperium has for the Chapter fortress-monastery. Considered derogatory by the Wolves

  The Rout – A name the Chapter occasionally uses for themselves, though fallen out of general use since Legion times

  Thread, the – Life of a person / a person’s lifeline or fate – Also: Cutting a / his / her thread – Taking a / his / her life

  Wolftime – The end of all things and return of the Wolf King – See also: Morkai

  Appendix: Notes on the Crusade

  Despite early Imperial successes, by the fourth year of the war a ­number of problems had arisen that slowed the initial rapid advances of the crusade. The emergence of xenos threats in several places increased the burdens placed on the crusade fleets, adding to the threat posed by the forces of Abaddon the Despoiler. Meanwhile, certain strategos responsible for the warzones around Terra awaited the traitors’ push on the Throneworld, but for a long time it did not come. There has been a great deal of speculation as to why this was the case. At the time, the prevailing theory was that the delay was caused by internal divisions within the Chaos hosts; this resulted in an expectation that the war might be brought to a swift conclusion.

  This was not to be. A stalemate descended upon the galaxy. While the endless, grinding war of attrition conducted by Fleet Secundus, towards the galactic north of Terra, held back Abaddon’s fleets, a number of equally large warzones were forming elsewhere, and these increasingly drew in numbers of battle groups, sapping the stamina of the crusade as much as they did its manpower. So many were the threats, and so overtaxed the Imperial forces, that the Dawn of Fire, Guilliman’s flagship, is said to have made untold numbers of warp jumps as the last primarch raced from front to front providing his personal guidance.

  Despite the circumstances, Guilliman was far too great a commander to be purely reactive, and stuck to his strategy where possible. The crusade was slowed but not stopped, and although it happened less quickly than the primarch might have liked, large tranches of Imperium Sanctus were being brought back under direct Imperial control. Behind the front-line fleets smaller forces came: many to enforce the Imperial Tithe and the Imperial Exacta on worlds still reeling from conflict, but there were many reconstruction fleets also, delivering food, machinery and manpower. With remarkable rapidity, the astropathic network was restored to something approaching its pre-Rift state, even if astropaths were to remain in short supply for years afterwards, while the establishment of fortress hubs and bastion worlds stabilised many sectors as well as providing anchor points for further reconquest.

  However, it was clear by then that the nature of the war was changing, as areas of instability emerged, consuming more and more resources with every passing month. Although lightning-fast gains continued in some sectors, the balance of conflicts were tipping inexorably towards long, grinding holding actions across multiple theatres of war.

  THE ANAXIAN LINE

  The most important of all these early conflict zones was undoubtedly that held at unimaginable cost by Fleet Secundus. The third fleet to depart, ordered to travel towards the remains of the Cadian Gate before suitable warp currents had been rediscovered, Secundus’ difficult Road of Martyrs ended in unrelenting warfare against fleets of the Traitor Legions supported by infinite hordes of daemons.

  It took many years for Secundus to finally make its way close to the Eye of Terror. As the war dragged on, a whole section of Imperium Sanctus was given over to preventing Abaddon’s advance on Terra and supporting Fleet Secundus. Dubbed the Anaxian Line, this hemisphere of systems, all quickly fortified, provided a new defensive position to replace that lost by the fall of Cadia. Many light years deep, the web of defences ensured that no world or fleet could be isolated without reinforcement, while a constant stream of ships and bodies poured into Fleet Secundus as it fought its endless battle.

  VIGILUS

  Holding one end of the Nachmund Gauntlet, at the time the only known stable route across the Great Rift, Vigilus was of key importance to the Imperium. Losing this bastion would effectively cut off the newly re-contacted Imperium Nihilus from Terra. Vigilus was therefore contested from the very start of the war, with successive forces of orks, genestealer cultists and Chaos warbands assailing the system.

  ULTRAMAR

  For Ultramar, Calgar’s absence could not have come at a worse time, as Mortarion’s Death Guard continued their escalating series of assaults upon Guilliman’s personal sub-empire. These attacks, later named as the First, Second and Third Plague Wars, would devastate much of Ultramar, and ultimately led Guilliman to go home in order to reform and reinforce his domain. As it was, for much of the early period, the Ultramarines and their allied Chapters found themselves stretched to breaking point containing the sons of Mortarion, preventing their fuller involvement in the wider conflicts breaking out elsewhere. Though in nearly all cases the Ultramarines attempted to fulfil their obligations, much of the Chapter was tied up defending their home ground, and they rarely ventured out above company strength.

  NEPHILIM SECTOR, ULTIMA SEGMENTUM

  By the fourth year of the Indomitus Crusade, the Lord Commander had been made aware of growing concerns by commanders in the south of the Ultima Segmentum, around an area originally dubbed the ‘Nephilim Anomaly.’ Though it was not rare for fleets to cease communication for long periods, several in the region had gone missing in their entirety and enemy intervention was the only explanation. A battle group despatched from Fleet Primus was rapidly reinforced, with more ships drawn from all over the southern galaxy as the true scale of the threat became clearer: potentially hundreds, perhaps thousands of star systems cut off from the warp by xenos artifice. Fighting as much against the soul-deadening effect of horrifying technology as against the xenos themselves, Imperial forces were forced to switch from an offensive reconquest to containing the armies of the foe. Even so, the true gravity of the situation in the south was not to emerge for some time.

  SEGMENTUM SOLAR

  Biding his time until the first of the fleets had set sail and, crucially, when Roboute Guilliman himself was absent from Terra, Kor Phaeron of the Word Bearers launched a large attack across the Segmentum Solar. His targets were primarily shrine and cardinal worlds, with the first major action taking place at Talledus. Here, as at Gathalamor, the Iron Warriors joined forces with the Word Bearers in a system-wide invasion. It was to be only the first. The aims of the Word Bearers were primarily religious in nature, concerned as they were with undermining the faith of the Imperial populace and replacing it with their own. So great was the despair prevalent in the post-Rift Imperium, the Word Bearers’ dark priests found ready listeners on even the most devout of planets, and the number of rebellions they provoked quickly spiralled, while dedicated hunter-fleets actively sought out and destroyed the Black Ships of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica to starve the Emperor of sustenance.

  Recognising that such uprisings often preceded full-scale war by the Word Bearers, and suspecting that the destabilisation of the Segmentum Solar by Kor Phaeron was the beginning of a two-part strategy to attack Terra itself, the high command of the Imperium diverted multiple battle groups to deal with the threat, negatively affecting progress elsewhere. Led by elements of fleets Tertius, Quartus, Quintus and Sextus, these forces were unable to prevent the situation rapidly degenerating into chaos. Despite many Imperial victories, each pacification of a rebellious world was followed by another uprising, in a pattern that was hard to predict.

  OCTARIUS SECTOR AND DIVERSE ENVIRONS

  Of greatest concern to Roboute Guilliman was the scale of ork activity within the Ultima Segmentum and the Segmentum Solar, revealed as Fleet Primus worked its way towards the Rift, where Guilliman hoped to find a second stable route across to Imperium Nihilus.

  Orks were expected in the region. They had plagued that part of the galaxy since time immemorial, yet the sheer number of them proved a rude shock. Ghazghkull Thraka had provoked the largest ork Waaagh! since the War of the Beast, and orks flocked by the million to the sectors around Fenris, Ryza, the Maelstrom and Elysia. Mired in constant, small-scale wars against uncountable ork warlords, the battle groups of Fleet Primus were slowed to a crawl, suffering a constant depletion of men and materiel as they fought their way to what now seemed unattainable targets.

  A key part of Guilliman’s strategy from the beginning had been to use the Primogenitor Chapters of the Space Marines as focal points for Imperial resistance and reconquest. Already, he had handed great powers to his own gene-son, Marneus Calgar, as he would in later years to Commander Dante of the Blood Angels. Guilliman’s aim had always been to co-opt Logan Grimnar, Great Wolf of the Space Wolves, to his cause, and leave him in charge of clearing out the ork threat devilling Terra’s right flank.

  As events detailed in this tome attest, Guilliman’s task was far from easy, not least because the Space Wolves were, for a time, feared destroyed. After Guilliman convinced Grimnar to join his cause, and leaving the division and assignment of the many Primaris Space Marines of Russ’ line to the Great Wolf’s wisdom, the role Grimnar was given was an arduous one. Years of warfare spearheaded by the Space Wolves were to follow as Guilliman turned his attention elsewhere, while Grimnar and his Fenrisians joined a growing list of Imperial heroes intent on hunting Ghazghkull down.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gav Thorpe is the author of the Horus Heresy novels The First Wall, Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban and Corax, as well as the novella The Lion, which formed part of the New York Times bestselling collection The Primarchs, and several audio dramas. He has written many novels for Warhammer 40,000, including Indomitus, Ashes of Prospero, Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah and the Last Chancers series, including the most recent title, The Last Chancers: Armageddon Saint. He also wrote the Rise of the Ynnari novels Ghost Warrior and Wild Rider, the Path of the Eldar and Legacy of Caliban trilogies, and two volumes in The Beast Arises series. For Warhammer, Gav has penned the End Times novel The Curse of Khaine, the Warhammer Chronicles omnibus The Sundering, and, for Age of Sigmar, The Red Feast. In 2017, Gav won the David Gemmell Legend Award for his novel Warbeast. He lives and works in Nottingham.

  An extract from Indomitus.

  ‘They shall be pure of heart and strong of body, untainted by doubt and unsullied by self-aggrandisement.’ Praxa­medes had spoken without thought, the words of the Codex Astartes coming to him unbidden and reaching his tongue before he could stop them.

  ‘Is that censure of a senior officer, Lieutenant Praxa­medes?’ asked Aeschelus as he looked away from the command bridge’s main viewing display. The Ultramarines captain paced across the strategium of the Ithraca’s Vengeance, heading to where his second-in-command stood alongside the task force’s other lieutenant, Nem­etus.

  The polished blue of their armour danced with the amber-and-red glow of console lights, smudged by a bright plasma gleam shining from the tactical videolith that dominated the wall of the large command chamber. Tac-slaved servitors wired to terminals and augur banks grunted and chattered their dataflows to azure-robed overseers, who in turn compiled reports for their Space Marine officers. Behind them, Shipmaster Oryk Oloris, in heavy trousers that were tucked into knee-high boots and a crisp white shirt beneath his Ultramarines uniform tunic, prowled the deck with a watchful eye.

  Praxa­medes instantly regretted his momentary lapse.

  ‘As a scholar of the lord pri­march’s teachings, you would know that the Codex Astartes has much to say on respect for the chain of command.’ Aeschelus came alongside his two officers and half-turned back towards the main screen. He opened his hand towards the screen, indicating the starship that drifted across the spray of stars, plumes of blue and white plasma ejecting haphazardly from a ruptured reactor. ‘Our preliminary surveyor reports indicate that we have disabled their weapons grid. The threat is minimal.’

  ‘My words, brother-captain, were in reference to Nem­etus’ overly keen desire to lead the boarding,’ Praxa­medes told his superior. ‘There are still enemy vessels in the vicinity.’

  ‘Two destroyers,’ scoffed Nem­etus. ‘Too fast a prey to hunt on our own. As soon as we give chase, they will disappear into the asteroids and gas clouds on the boundary of the third orbital sphere. Would you follow them into that, knowing that they could turn on us under the cover of our overwhelmed scanners?’

  ‘That was not my suggestion, brother-lieutenant,’ said Praxa­medes, frowning. It was an occasional fault of Nem­etus to protest against an ill-thought strategy that had not, in fact, been raised, perhaps purely to show that he had considered and discarded such action himself. ‘Our primary objective is destruction of the enemy. Boarding brings unnecessary risk, at a time when the battle groups of Fleet Quintus must conserve their strength.’

  ‘That is a Hellbringer-class cruiser,’ added Nem­etus. ‘Nobody has built one for eight thousand years. It is a piece of archeotech in its own right.’

  ‘The lord pri­march would also favour heavily any intelligence we might glean from its cogitator banks,’ said Aeschelus. ‘We are at the forefront of the crusade, encountering foes fresh to the battle. This is a raider, an assault ship built for planetary attack. Perhaps this ship comes from beyond the Cicatrix Maledictum and could shed light on what is occurring in the Imperium Nihilus lost beyond the warp rifts.’

  This time, Praxa­medes was wise enough to hold his tongue, wishing the whole conversation would be forgotten. Aeschelus noticed his lieutenant’s reticence and continued.

  ‘You urge caution with a depleted resource, which is laudable, but I would not spend the lives of the lord pri­march’s warriors needlessly.’ Aeschelus allowed his voice to travel a little further, carrying to other members of the command crew across the strategium. It was typical of Aeschelus’ fine touch of command that he would turn potential remonstration into a moment to inspire others. It was a knack that Praxa­medes sorely lacked, nor had any idea how to acquire despite his efforts.

  ‘For near a decade, as ship-board chronometers reckon it, we have fought hard in the crusade of the lord pri­march. At the outset there was treachery and catastrophe, losses suffered before the fleet had even left Terra. Our own task force lost its noble group master to the plague purges. Those here, and that came before, knew that there would be no easy victories, that a galaxy broken asunder by the witchery of our enemies would be an unwelcoming battlezone. Yet even the most pessimistic among us would not have countenanced the uncountable labours and obstacles that Fleet Quintus has found in its path.

  ‘Every victory has been hard-fought and we have met with more reverses than those in other fleets. Each foe must be overcome in turn – every opportunity to rise from the shadows of past setbacks must be seized. Before us lies a prize, won by our own endeavour, that may lift the fortunes of not just the Ithraca’s Vengeance or Battle Group Faustus, but perhaps bring heart to all of Crusade Fleet Quintus that our extraordinary travails have been to purpose.’

  ‘A prize that is even now trying to slip from our fingers,’ growled Nem­etus, nodding towards the videolith. ‘See how they crawl towards the stellar flotsam, seeking sanctuary in its midst. We must seize the moment, brother-captain.’

  ‘And I stand ready to lead the attack, as always,’ said Praxa­medes. ‘As the longest serving lieutenant it would be my honour to do so.’

 

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